What F-M coach Bill Aris knows that no one else knows...

I also think, on top of his kids buying into the program, the benefit of him being able to work with his teams from middle school on (6 years) plays into it a little bit. That's a lot of time to work an develop an athlete in any program.

You make it sound so easy. Why doesn't every one just sell their programs like he does? Oh, that's right. They can't!

You don't produce talent as a coach, you can only help to maximize the talent that already existed within that athlete. That goes for any HS sport. The FM kids are extremely well coached and get closer to their maximum performance than any other team. The flip side is that more talented runners that they beat in HS will often pass them up in college. That shouldn't be held against the Aris'.

I don't see how he is injuring his kids either. As someone pointed out in this thread, they are doing this with relatively small rosters, which indicates the opposite.

The same thing goes for football and basketball at every level jump up to the NFL and NBA. Scouts and coaches are fascinated by players with "upside" and with good reason. That upside can lead to huge performance gains at the next level. The reality is, upside means is that the scouts think that their coaches and strength training staff can get more out of a player than their previous coaches could. In some cases this is nothing more than an insult of the previous coaches.

The FM girls have achieved something special and unique in high school. So unique that it truly qualifies as a lifetime achievement. They can't equal that success in college, so of course it will be letdown.

The lifestyle in college is very different than high school. College coaches couldn't duplicate the FM lifestyle even if they wanted to. Success in college is getting a good education. Participation in college athletics can also be successful, but expecting the FM girls to achieve in college what they achieved in high school is unreasonable.

Why should athletic achievement in college outweigh achievement in high school? Very few girls advance to the professional level. Perhaps many girls are able to achieve their highest level of athletic performance in high school when properly motivated due to their life circumstances. College may be a better time physiologically, but college lifestyle circumstances may prevent it. Poor coaches may prevent it. Worrying about the rest of your life may prevent it.

Coach Aris has allowed many FM runners to be rewarded with something very special in high school. I applaud his achievement. College coaches won't like this, but experience has shown me that college athletics is secondary. If high school is the time to "seize the moment", I say do it.

90s Connecticut Guy wrote:

Same goes for York HS. We heard for years and years how that program burns out all it's kids, but look at Don Sage, the one super talented kid to come through it.

He was top 13 three times in NCAA cross and won an NCAA title on the track.

I would be willing to bet that 99 out of 100 of the York studs weren't all that talented, they just bought into a great program with a 1 in a million coach.

And you could say something similar for Mead and Tyson. After the Davis/Aubrey/James crew, none of those guys really did anything in college outside of Laef Barnes breaking 4. Jason Fayant qualified for NCAA Cross as an individual I think, and maybe got around 14:10.

The atmosphere and expectation gets the most out of average to above average talent and, also importantly, the running environment at most colleges afterwards is a step down from high school. Whether that is burnout or disappointment and a loss of desire is hard to say.

Socioeconomic status matters too. Our state has come to be dominated by suburban mega-school from wealthy areas.

I worked in a rural program that was top 4 the last few years at state. Certainly no FM, but we were one of the best small schools in our area.

So many of the kids worked weekend jobs at Dairy Queen or Subway to pay for stuff, running shoes included. The day of a meet they would go home then work an 8 hour shift on their feet in the evenings--not sit around, foam roll, and drink protein shakes. They'd work another shift Sunday, and come in exhausted on Monday. There was no physical therapy or fancy weight room.

A lot of talented athletes didn't even play sports--they just worked or couldn't get rides into practice.

I ran for a suburban school and had WAY more of the little things going for me than these kids have. Being in a really wealthy district with parents who can take kids to PT, dietitians, specialists etc when needed makes a big difference.

This is what what the McFarland story so special to me.

And if you look at NXN Qualifiers in the Midwest, its schools from the north suburbs of Chicago, also very wealthy. Same with California schools in the South Bay, like Dana Hills.

Mid-Major Coach wrote:

Once you get to college 4:50 is suddenly very ho-hum at the conference level, and when your mileage jumps from 55 a week to 65 a week you are not going to see the same level of improvement that the 5:10 miler who ran 35 miles a week will.

Hard for these guys to jump mileage when they've already been running 120 MPW in HS.

Interesting thread! I was thinking maybe it would be coaching theory and training schedules but is perhaps equally interesting...

Here's what has struck me as true:

Economics matters. A lot. I know about this district from non-running sources, and it is wealthy. The working class struggles in many ways and the truly poor have a lot on their minds besides sports. This is more significant than you might realize if you're comfortable yourself.

Aris has access to the kids in 2 ways HS coaches usually don't, as far as I can tell. He finds them a few years before they're evn at the school, and he has year-round access. This breaks rules of the State HS Athletics Association (or whatever it's called in your State) in many places, perhaps including NY. If these out-of-season practices are not officially school related but are organized by Aris' club, then it's probably OK. 'Legal' or not, this has to make a difference.

I have 2 ideas not being discussed. First, we know that the school/school district/State school board does sponsor and sanction a team. This team is welcome at the State federation's events including State Championships but not at NXN. A team attending the Nike event is not officially school-sanctioned or -affiliated and the district/States insurance does not cover anyone or anything involved. They don't even wear the school-purchased uniforms.

Does anyone know if the actual school team and the club team are one and the same? Does Aris put runners on the team being sent to NXN who either don't live in the F-M school district, do but don't run for the school team, have graduated, etc? Is it an all-star team assembled for 2 races a year, the NX qualifier, and the Nationals?

It is certainly possible that everyone wearing Aris' club jersey a) attends F-M High, b) has the grades and disciplinary status to participate in school-sponsored sports, and c) actually went over to the table and signed up in August or whenever. I don't find it unbelievable, however, that this is not the case.

A possible limitation would be Nike's age requirements, if any. We often see 18 and occasionally 19 year olds claiming high school sub-4s, etc. My friends and I put together a team to compete in the High School division of a road relay. We only had our friends to choose from but the school did not know (and would not have been amused if it had) nor regulate any part of the process. We could have recruited anyone young enough looking to not raise any suspicion. Just an idea. There may or may not be anything to this theory.

Remarkably, the MB has not really considered drugs. Not illegal drugs necessarily, but legal ones like EPO which are common in US hospitals and not, as far as I'm aware, against Nike's rules. Some of you may point out that none of the athletes in question has ever failed a grug test, but does anyone have evidence of them passing a test either? Testing is rare and non-existant for those of us not belonging to USATF or a similar organization. IAAF, UCI, et al give WADA the authority to test athletes belonging to member federations, and such member federation give USADA and it's foreign analogs the same authority over their respective memberships.

If you have nothing to do with IAAF or USATF, I don't even know how to go about getting tested. I've certainly never seen a booth at the end of a race. NXN is no exception. We may not know whether Aris condones activity some view as unsportsmanlike or unethical. But the facts overwhelmingly suggest the following: we don't know that he doesn't. Could this be one of the answers to a question that coincidence and probability have a difficult time explaining? Maybe. Maybe not.

There's something about the area. Maybe the early settlers were a tougher, harder working type of people.

My mom was from Manlius. During my running days I was known as the guy who would outwork everyone. Now I have a young son and daughter that run, and especially my son has shown he can out work other runners.

Wonder how they would do if I somehow moved to central NY.

Look at the boys team to see his true talent. I'm not a hater at all. I'm trying to be objective. Based on his boys team he is a top notch coach and that can't be argued.

The difference is with having access to girls for 6 years instead of 4 like the majority of the country. If CA allowed access to kids in middle school this would be entirely different. Imagine if NY didn't allow middle schoolers to train/race with the HS kids and CA did. I suspect FM would maybe have 1 title still and GO would have a half dozen by nkw.

Either way, Aris is hugely successful and has made a considerable impact on a lot of kids in a positive way. In the big picture that is what running is all about; becoming better versions of ourselves and obviously he's inspiring kids to do just that.

His coaching style works for HS kids, a lot of miles, great team mindset, and they have mandated diets. He and his son (who I know is reading this thread, hi!) tried their hand at the pro scene and it was a flop, they had a decent sized Nike sponsored group. They brought in some good talent, even a few Kenyans, and now the group gone with the exception of a few self coached athletes running under the stotan name.

What you see with a program that can win ten straight national championships out of upstate New York is not because their feeder system is so incredible or their teams so large or even because they do resistance training and heavy weight work or any single secret. It is very, very difficult to put all the parts together. I get the sense from talking to someone connected to the program that every aspect of training is extremely well thought out. To take just one example, I saw Aris's club team, Stotan, warming up before Club XC Nationals a few years ago. They start 40 minutes out and with 20 minutes left they do something like 3x40s hard to get the lactate starting to clear by race time. They are all running together. They run on soft hilly terrain. They run high miles. They train year round. Their parents and alumni and students all buy into the program as the center of their lives. No doubt their workouts are very well thought out as well and progressive to peak at nationals. And there is no way they are training as hard as many top collegians or pros, so there is absolutely still plenty of room to grow. Remember that some of our best pros (Webb, Ryun, Ritz, Hall) trained already at a high level and intensity in high school and still grew afterward (Webb dropped from 3:53 to 3:46; Ryun dropped from 3:55 to 3:51/1:44; Ritz dropped from 8:41 to 8:11/13:44 to 12:56; Hall dropped from 3:42 1500m to the monumentally better 2:06:17 marathon (and 2:04:58w).

FM in College... wrote:

I wouldn't even consider his coaching much of a "success" in the grand scheme of things beyond highschool.

most of the runners end up hating running because of the army style coaching and eventually burn out not too long after they leave.

don't care anymore.

Why does everyone think this program is good for kids?.

There may be something to this idea of success in the grand scheme of things.

No question that FM has had phenomenal success with xc teams that do incredibly well at the national level.

If that is the definition of success, they achieve it,

But what about developing a love for and interest in running? Do most of the FM kids even run in college? Do they run on their own through life? Do they maintain an active fit lifestyle?

Are they incredibly driven Type A personalities that go on to devote and focus a huge part of their life to their family/job/business?

Are they well-rounded people, that are able to relax and live a balanced life?

I stopped participating in organized high school sports because I had bad experiences with what I felt were overbearing, strict and demanding coaches. I ran on my own, ran well in college, and continue to enjoy running 30 years later.

I thank those coaches every time I see them, as I would have hated running and sports if I would have remained on those teams.

I would not trade any amount of success I might have had in high school for the successful lifetime of running I have had.

Do they recruit? Is there open enrollment and kids are coming from other areas to attend school and compete for FM? I'm not accusing, just asking. Each state has different rules. Or are all the kids from a fairly small geographical area?

I live in an area with two small-medium sized high schools with very strong running traditions. One school, the boys team has been consistently better, the other school, the girls team has been better. But both have strong programs. If they merged, the total school size would be around 1500 students and they would be powerhouses for boys and girls. It is certainly possible to build powerhouse running programs in relatively concise geographical areas.

its easy if you have zero regard for their running careers after high school

Manbearpig15 wrote:

There's something about the area. Maybe the early settlers were a tougher, harder working type of people.

My mom was from Manlius. During my running days I was known as the guy who would outwork everyone. Now I have a young son and daughter that run, and especially my son has shown he can out work other runners.

Wonder how they would do if I somehow moved to central NY.

The pro group wasn't a flop because of Bill but because of a lack of talent. Let me state a few things.

1) Bill Aris is a genius.

It's late at night on a Friday. Do I really need to type why? I guess I have time.

Here goes. When I was at Cornell. I was interested in recruiting Owen Kimple. He was one of the original Stotans. I went to the NY HS state meet when Owen was a junior and had run like 915. I met Bill and said, "Oh is Owen your best guy?" He laughed. He said, "No we had a different #1 every meet every year but Owen was as low as #6. Our #1 guy isn't running individually."

I was like, 'Why not.?' Bill Aris was like (paraphrasing), "He's a sophomore and he was running the 2mile indoors each week and not improving and not having fun and looked miserable so I went up to him and said something along the lines of, "Look your ultimately a distance guy. But you're only a sophomore. So do you want to run your event (deuce) or just do what we need you to do - the 4 x 800, be young and have some fun?" He (Tommy Gruenewald who ran at BYU/Stanford) said the latter.

That was my first significant in-person interatction with Bill. When I heard that story, I instantly realized that it wasn't all about him. He didn't force these kids to do anything. He got them to do it.

Kimple was like a 413-5 kid who then popped a 407 1600 in his last meet before college where another kid basically rabbitted it out. I thought to mysefl, "Oh God. He's not a 407 talent. It would have been better if he'd never run that." While many of the FM guys aren't huge on milesage, Owen had run 1000 miles over a 10 week period before the summer of his senior year.

So when he got to Cornell, I thought to myself, " We can't have him do even more for like 4 years and he can't be that focused for 4 years so let's let him relax a year or two and then if he's going to get better, he's going to have to be even more focused." He was talented, don't get me wrong, and had a BEAUTIFUL stride. I think he probably could have been close to a sub-4 guy if he killed himself but he went abroad etc as I forgot to tell him I had this unofficial plan for him. Ha ha. But he was on our Ivy League record holding DMR and PR'd by a little (406 mile ??) and is a great guy whom I'm consider a good friend and whom I go out with every time I'm in NYC.

if you asked Owen right now, I'm sure he'd say that if he stuck with Bill he'd be in the Olympics. But that's the way I felt about John Kellogg when I was running. He's like most people on letsrun think if you train harder you get better. You do - until you hit your genetic limit - which comes later in life. Most people don't realize this as they never run after college or coach which leads to #2.

2) I knew the pro group wouldn't be successful (unless they got a huge budget).

When they started it, someone asked me about it, and I said something along the lines of, "It won't be good unless they get the best talent. In high school, you can out-train 95% of your competition. At the pro level- hell even college level - you can't do that."

I was 100% right on that. I bet it even surprised Bill. But you learn. It's like when I got to Cornell I thought I could make Cornell into a top 5 program (not possible).

Their pro group reminds me of Salzar's before he got the likes of Rupp/Farah etc. You can't win Olympic medals with pedestrian talent or lifestyle. When Salazar was working with people of roughly my brother's talent level (Chad Johnson, donnely, etc) they weren't world beaters.

3) After college, the best Stotans have been the men. Alex Hatz ran 339 at Wisco. He's their version of Don Sage for Joe Newton. What's interesting is how their women have done almost NOTHING in college.

Up until a few years ago, I think this stat was true. An FM girl had never been a scorer on an NCAA XC team. Some had been 7th girl but never top 5. Now that changed this year as Neal for UW is really good. But she transferred into the team senior year for xc and I think had already quit by the time outdoor rolled around.

4) Why would we expect them to be world beaters in HS or college? It's normal for the top HS programs to not make impacts at the college level and for top college programs to not make impacts at the pro level. How many of NAU's top 5 this year will be stars at the pro level? (1?) Same thing applies to Syracuse in 2015 (1?)? Look at football. Mater Dei is the #1 HS football team in the land. They have 2 recruits this year that are ranked in the top 50 in California. Are the football messageboards blowing up because a HS team can't dominate at the college level?

5) He does an unreal job and the fact that those women come through as favorites every year is unreal. He provides a great experience for them. Maybe too great as I think some find college to be unmotivating, etc.

I

WCTC wrote:

its easy if you have zero regard for their running careers after high school

Tbh, most people, unless you're really gifted, should move on after HS anyway and focus on studying and life.

Don't know much about the F-M program but for the longest time interviews with the girls teams seemed kinda creepy. It's not so much their responses, (could very well be they are being "coached" what to say), but they never seem happy or smiling. It's all " 1 and 1 is 2, 2 and 2 is 4, still lots of work to be done, all for one, one for all, out." It's almost like a job for them.