Leave the program and kids alone, stop bringing the kids down! You’re going to look real silly when all distance records at UT go down this year. Including your 1500m record by at least 3 seconds
Embarrassing? Are you really boasting about UT's performance over the last 20 years? It's completely embarrassing that you are crack someone from Tennessee will finally break Tim Pitcher's 30 year old school record of 3:41 low. In the age of super spikes and open source training, the fact that no one has done that or broken 4:00 in the mile goes to show UT’s sub par competition since circa 1997 when the Ellington brothers departed campus. There are about 6 US high school lads that have run faster than the UT 1500 meters school record since Pitcher ran that 3:41.
Let's hope if the lad that won the 10k at this year's NCAA championships transfers to UT, he breaks all of the distance records...they aren't that impressive frankly and most of them stand from the 1990s (save for Zach Long in the 5,000m). People on this thread boasting about a university athlete running 3:42 these days is mind-boggling. This particular lad ran worse than a top 50 American high schooler for most of the year...super inconsistent and was not even top 20 at SECs and was 3rd to last at the East Preliminaries. Yes, the coaching change and transfers will absolutely change the landscape of UT distance running, and we can all be happy for that. But those slagging Tim Pitcher for no obvious reason are on the tear and need to bugger off. Go Vols for the future, but let's live in reality regarding what you've done. I don't see "haters" as much as reality checkers. Am I right Teddy Mitchell?
The reality check that needs to be instilled in many of the UT alumni is that they make the University and themselves look incredibly stupid when you rip into the current athletes and staff for everything they do. Grow up and stop living in the past by dogging 18 and 19 year olds on the internet.
wait someone is gonna let sean carlson coach women? lol guess they didn't do their homework
Sean will have absolutely nothing to do with the womens xc program and he will be unable to hire a female coach no matter how much they’re paying.
If this is true, why not consider Rhonda Riley to head up women's xc/distance program? Proven P5 coach who had good success at Duke and can recruit. Could be a nice addition at Rocky Top.
there have been no significant women transfers, and several notable men transfer to TN, and so far all the staff are men. It is one thing to build a culture for men, and quite another to build one for women. Either they need to hire someone who can successfully coach and recruit women, or their women's distance will suffer while the men's program grows.
there have been no significant women transfers, and several notable men transfer to TN, and so far all the staff are men. It is one thing to build a culture for men, and quite another to build one for women. Either they need to hire someone who can successfully coach and recruit women, or their women's distance will suffer while the men's program grows.
i have no doubt that the vol men will be on top in the next few years...but with all the real coaching positions filled by men who have mostly coached and recruited men, and even in a month having some pretty big activity for the men (and very little for the women)-one could logically conclude the women will not be as successful. Plus you have several successful women's programs close geographically (UNC, NC State, Wake) to name a few. Of course there is also the financial part. I am not saying they won't do well, just looking at the facts- logically it is less probable, it will be interesting to see what happens.
Yes, bringing in the transfers was huge. If not for their top 3, who were all transfers, Tennessee would have been 6-7th AGAIN. To look at the effect of coaching over recruiting, take a look at all the athletes that were there pre-Carlson and then once he got there (granted he's only been coaching them for around 5-6 months)... there were 6 athletes that ran the SEC championships in 2021 and 2022. Here's how their performance broke down:
Tennessee was 4th, 9th, 4th, and 5th the last four years. Carlson (a.k.a. the greatest ever) was oh so close to replicating the same result with at least twice the scholarship amount.
Against worse versions of the Ole Miss and Arkansas teams of old, too.
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