Brosnan was a guest on the podcast on Tuesday. He told us he that her personally recorded the audio version of the book. This week only, if you join our Supporters Club, we'll send you a copy of the book and a free t-shirt as Rojo's college roommate Chris Lear is a co-author.
Agree. To me, the most compelling part of the argument is, he never did it anywhere else, at any other time in his life. If he was that great, wouldn't you expect him to have shown how great he is with some other team, somewhere else, some other time?
Even at NP, the first 2 years, they were really pretty average. It wasn't until the Sahlmans and Nico's brothers showed up that they really dominated.
You can say he did well at UCLA (debatable), but he certainly wasn't "all time great".
In just one year at UCLA with him, they went from having zero distance qualifiers to suddenly producing multiple indoor and outdoor NCAA qualifiers and All-Americans. The years before he arrived? None. The years after he left? None again. And on the LetsRun podcast, he even pointed out that he hadn’t coached the girls at Newbury Park for four years — yet they still had a national relay record and the top girls in the nation. The truth is, the kids at Newbury Park were the lucky ones. They struck gold when he showed up to coach them.
UCLA has a 5k dude in 2019, but beside that it’s been pretty bad over the years and again now. Brosnan gave us some hope with sold turn for one year, but what did he except from a school that cares more about Palestine then their students well being. UCLA is a dumpster fire for distance
Every now and then xc/track coaches make a program great and maintain it. Brosnan's Newbury Park came from out of nowhere to the best ever hs distance program in a short time. He set the bar very high. Some programs are pretty close now. Set all the rancor aside. I've compared some of his prospects to other eighth and ninth graders at the time. The other guys who were comparable or better than Brosnan's guys in middle school and ninth grade were nowhere close by junior or senior year.
Every now and then xc/track coaches make a program great and maintain it. Brosnan's Newbury Park came from out of nowhere to the best ever hs distance program in a short time. He set the bar very high. Some programs are pretty close now. Set all the rancor aside. I've compared some of his prospects to other eighth and ninth graders at the time. The other guys who were comparable or better than Brosnan's guys in middle school and ninth grade were nowhere close by junior or senior year.
Why has he never done it anywhere else?
Also, please give the example of the best group of middle schoolers at any given high school that you can find. Please find another high school that had more than 5 middle schoolers that broke 5 on the roster at any single time. After you search for a school, realize NP had a dozen that broke 5 in middle school (several of which were in the 4:40’s).
Every now and then xc/track coaches make a program great and maintain it. Brosnan's Newbury Park came from out of nowhere to the best ever hs distance program in a short time. He set the bar very high. Some programs are pretty close now. Set all the rancor aside. I've compared some of his prospects to other eighth and ninth graders at the time. The other guys who were comparable or better than Brosnan's guys in middle school and ninth grade were nowhere close by junior or senior year.
Why has he never done it anywhere else?
Also, please give the example of the best group of middle schoolers at any given high school that you can find. Please find another high school that had more than 5 middle schoolers that broke 5 on the roster at any single time. After you search for a school, realize NP had a dozen that broke 5 in middle school (several of which were in the 4:40’s).
Take away the Youngs and Sahlmans and they had 8 other kids who broke 5:00 before high school. That is an unbelievable group of kids at a single high school. It was a once in a life time collision of a massively talented group of kids with a coach that put a lot of effort into them. That’s how greatness happened.
Every now and then xc/track coaches make a program great and maintain it. Brosnan's Newbury Park came from out of nowhere to the best ever hs distance program in a short time. He set the bar very high. Some programs are pretty close now. Set all the rancor aside. I've compared some of his prospects to other eighth and ninth graders at the time. The other guys who were comparable or better than Brosnan's guys in middle school and ninth grade were nowhere close by junior or senior year.
Why has he never done it anywhere else?
Also, please give the example of the best group of middle schoolers at any given high school that you can find. Please find another high school that had more than 5 middle schoolers that broke 5 on the roster at any single time. After you search for a school, realize NP had a dozen that broke 5 in middle school (several of which were in the 4:40’s).
He started coaching NP in 2016 and stopped in what, 2021? Then he coached UCLA for one year with relative success, and hasn't coached anywhere since. You act like he's still out there coaching high school and failing.
My high school had several kids who broke 4:50 in middle school, they ended up as 4:30 guys by their senior year. I had heard one of them turned into a national level triathlete after college but there was no internet back then to actually find out.
Also, please give the example of the best group of middle schoolers at any given high school that you can find. Please find another high school that had more than 5 middle schoolers that broke 5 on the roster at any single time. After you search for a school, realize NP had a dozen that broke 5 in middle school (several of which were in the 4:40’s).
He started coaching NP in 2016 and stopped in what, 2021? Then he coached UCLA for one year with relative success, and hasn't coached anywhere since. You act like he's still out there coaching high school and failing.
My high school had several kids who broke 4:50 in middle school, they ended up as 4:30 guys by their senior year. I had heard one of them turned into a national level triathlete after college but there was no internet back then to actually find out.
Name your school. How many is several? How many? i will guarantee you didn't have 5. Prove me wrong.
“BROSNAN: It's funny because I was talking at this clinic once - this running clinic, and this young girl asked me a question, and she said, hey, Coach Sean - that's what everyone calls me - and she said, do you think if you were at my high school, would you win a national title here? And then I asked her. I said, how many students do you have in your high school? And I forget the exact answer, but it was somewhere 15 and 1,800. And I said, yes, absolutely. My belief is if you have a thousand or more students, the talent is there. And if you really want to put in the work, I think anyone could be state champions or, you know, even national champions. And I believe that. I truly, truly believe that.”
Bro coached the greatest high school sports team in history, building it from the ground up. Then he went to UCLA, delivered results, but didn’t get renewed by the wokest school west of the Mississippi. Along the way, he’s been around some of the best coaches in the sport — and everywhere he goes, he gets results. He can mic drop anyone posting here. He even wrote a book with arguably the best running writer in the business. Now he’s coaching pros, but the résumé speaks for itself. I bought the book just to see what the hype was about and honestly, he’s the man, whether you like it or not.
Bro coached the greatest high school sports team in history, building it from the ground up. Then he went to UCLA, delivered results, but didn’t get renewed by the wokest school west of the Mississippi. Along the way, he’s been around some of the best coaches in the sport — and everywhere he goes, he gets results. He can mic drop anyone posting here. He even wrote a book with arguably the best running writer in the business. Now he’s coaching pros, but the résumé speaks for itself. I bought the book just to see what the hype was about and honestly, he’s the man, whether you like it or not.
Some coaches just get it done. They don’t talk circles or look for excuses. They find a way. They know how to push the right buttons, when to step in and when to back off, and their athletes always end up better for it. At the end of the day, results speak louder than anything else.
Also, please give the example of the best group of middle schoolers at any given high school that you can find. Please find another high school that had more than 5 middle schoolers that broke 5 on the roster at any single time. After you search for a school, realize NP had a dozen that broke 5 in middle school (several of which were in the 4:40’s).
He started coaching NP in 2016 and stopped in what, 2021? Then he coached UCLA for one year with relative success, and hasn't coached anywhere since. You act like he's still out there coaching high school and failing.
My high school had several kids who broke 4:50 in middle school, they ended up as 4:30 guys by their senior year. I had heard one of them turned into a national level triathlete after college but there was no internet back then to actually find out.
I'd be curious to know what high school this is. How many kids did you have on the team that broke 4:50 in middle school? It seems pretty rare to have several.
How good was your team with these kids? Do you have a theory on why they only ran 4:30? Were they early developers or trained at a very high level as middle schoolers?
Bro coached the greatest high school sports team in history, building it from the ground up. Then he went to UCLA, delivered results, but didn’t get renewed by the wokest school west of the Mississippi. Along the way, he’s been around some of the best coaches in the sport — and everywhere he goes, he gets results. He can mic drop anyone posting here. He even wrote a book with arguably the best running writer in the business. Now he’s coaching pros, but the résumé speaks for itself. I bought the book just to see what the hype was about and honestly, he’s the man, whether you like it or not.
Some coaches just get it done. They don’t talk circles or look for excuses. They find a way. They know how to push the right buttons, when to step in and when to back off, and their athletes always end up better for it. At the end of the day, results speak louder than anything else.
HS runners that are capable of 4:00/8:30 are born and not made. It has nothing to do with pushing buttons or stepping in. In the Sacramento area, only German Fernandez matches up to the NP brothers. If he had had equally talented twin brothers and two equally talented ones from another family, the coach would have had 5 great runners just like Brosnan did.
Brosnan had 5 such runners in 5 years while Walt Lange has had zero in 50 years. Do you believe the difference is that Lange pushed the wrong buttons and stepped in at the wrong time?
Some coaches just get it done. They don’t talk circles or look for excuses. They find a way. They know how to push the right buttons, when to step in and when to back off, and their athletes always end up better for it. At the end of the day, results speak louder than anything else.
HS runners that are capable of 4:00/8:30 are born and not made. It has nothing to do with pushing buttons or stepping in. In the Sacramento area, only German Fernandez matches up to the NP brothers. If he had had equally talented twin brothers and two equally talented ones from another family, the coach would have had 5 great runners just like Brosnan did.
Brosnan had 5 such runners in 5 years while Walt Lange has had zero in 50 years. Do you believe the difference is that Lange pushed the wrong buttons and stepped in at the wrong time?
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Brosnan is on another level compared to Lange. Lange is a legend when it comes to longevity and respect in the sport, no doubt about that. But when it comes to actually getting athletes to reach their peak, Brosnan blows the doors off Lange, it’s not even close. That’s no disrespect to Lange, but his style is more of the old-school “listen to me approach”. He’s not really an innovator who pushes the sport forward the way Brosnan does.