Brosnan was a guest on the podcast on Tuesday. He told us he that he 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.
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.
This was in the 80s. There's no way I could prove anything from back then. I was a 2:22/5:10 9th grader (our 9th grade was in Jr High so we didn't run against high schoolers and did about 10 miles a week during track and most people didn't do cross country since it was at the high school; i didn't even know what it was until I was a sophomore). I ended up running 2:02/4:20 as a senior with my mileage never above 30 a week, and I didn't run at all from Nov until the beginning of Feb at my coach's direction. During my 10th-12th grade years there were a stream of sub 4:50 guys coming out of our Jr High. They should have been a great team but our coaching sucked. They never got a team to state XC. And during my years we had a 1:58/4:20 guy, two others guys who would later become D1 XC All Americans and sub 14:00 5000m runners, and me, and we never got close to getting a team to state in XC. I was the fastest high school miler out of that bunch. We were even in a weak district that got 6 teams through to state and were never close to that, maybe 11th place was our best finish in XC.
About 2-3 years just after me were about 4-5 kids who were 2:05/4:48 types in 8th/9th grade at the same time (across a span of about 3 years). Some soccer and football players who I was tasked to convince to do track instead plus a group of 4 kids who had been doing youth track with the club that I started running with the summer after 9th grade. They all basically ended up being only 2:04/4:30/10:20 type guys as seniors which surprised me because they were all 20s+ faster than me in the mile in middle school but never ended up developing any more, they just got their development during youth track and never got farther. One of them supposedly became a great triathlete after college (I was never able to verify that), one ran 4:11 in college, one ran 4:20 in college, and one ran in the 29s for 10k in college. There were a couple other guys that didn't run in college and ended up as low 4:30 guys in high school but for them I can't recall if they ran in the 4:40s in high school. There was also a 4:48 guy a year younger than me who ended up becoming a thrower when he came to high school (he sucked at throwing).
There is a lot of talent out there and I don't think it takes anything more than a little bit of time, building a good team culture, and a coach that inspires kids to stick with running year round instead of doing nothing or doing other sports to draw it out. And the coach can't set artificial limits on the kids, which 99% of coaches seem to do.
Name your school. How many is several? How many? i will guarantee you didn't have 5. Prove me wrong.
This was in the 80s. There's no way I could prove anything from back then. I was a 2:22/5:10 9th grader (our 9th grade was in Jr High so we didn't run against high schoolers and did about 10 miles a week during track and most people didn't do cross country since it was at the high school; i didn't even know what it was until I was a sophomore). I ended up running 2:02/4:20 as a senior with my mileage never above 30 a week, and I didn't run at all from Nov until the beginning of Feb at my coach's direction. During my 10th-12th grade years there were a stream of sub 4:50 guys coming out of our Jr High. They should have been a great team but our coaching sucked. They never got a team to state XC. And during my years we had a 1:58/4:20 guy, two others guys who would later become D1 XC All Americans and sub 14:00 5000m runners, and me, and we never got close to getting a team to state in XC. I was the fastest high school miler out of that bunch. We were even in a weak district that got 6 teams through to state and were never close to that, maybe 11th place was our best finish in XC.
About 2-3 years just after me were about 4-5 kids who were 2:05/4:48 types in 8th/9th grade at the same time (across a span of about 3 years). Some soccer and football players who I was tasked to convince to do track instead plus a group of 4 kids who had been doing youth track with the club that I started running with the summer after 9th grade. They all basically ended up being only 2:04/4:30/10:20 type guys as seniors which surprised me because they were all 20s+ faster than me in the mile in middle school but never ended up developing any more, they just got their development during youth track and never got farther. One of them supposedly became a great triathlete after college (I was never able to verify that), one ran 4:11 in college, one ran 4:20 in college, and one ran in the 29s for 10k in college. There were a couple other guys that didn't run in college and ended up as low 4:30 guys in high school but for them I can't recall if they ran in the 4:40s in high school. There was also a 4:48 guy a year younger than me who ended up becoming a thrower when he came to high school (he sucked at throwing).
There is a lot of talent out there and I don't think it takes anything more than a little bit of time, building a good team culture, and a coach that inspires kids to stick with running year round instead of doing nothing or doing other sports to draw it out. And the coach can't set artificial limits on the kids, which 99% of coaches seem to do.
OK, so you have no proof and it was i was 40+ years ago that you had 4 or 5. Sure.
Now let’s say you actually had 4 or 5 and you think that was some extraordinary situation. Realize NP had a DOZEN of them!!!!!
If this kind of talent is so common, why won’t somebody, anybody,, post a high school that had anywhere close to a dozen? It doesn’t and has never happened before.
This was in the 80s. There's no way I could prove anything from back then. I was a 2:22/5:10 9th grader (our 9th grade was in Jr High so we didn't run against high schoolers and did about 10 miles a week during track and most people didn't do cross country since it was at the high school; i didn't even know what it was until I was a sophomore). I ended up running 2:02/4:20 as a senior with my mileage never above 30 a week, and I didn't run at all from Nov until the beginning of Feb at my coach's direction. During my 10th-12th grade years there were a stream of sub 4:50 guys coming out of our Jr High. They should have been a great team but our coaching sucked. They never got a team to state XC. And during my years we had a 1:58/4:20 guy, two others guys who would later become D1 XC All Americans and sub 14:00 5000m runners, and me, and we never got close to getting a team to state in XC. I was the fastest high school miler out of that bunch. We were even in a weak district that got 6 teams through to state and were never close to that, maybe 11th place was our best finish in XC.
About 2-3 years just after me were about 4-5 kids who were 2:05/4:48 types in 8th/9th grade at the same time (across a span of about 3 years). Some soccer and football players who I was tasked to convince to do track instead plus a group of 4 kids who had been doing youth track with the club that I started running with the summer after 9th grade. They all basically ended up being only 2:04/4:30/10:20 type guys as seniors which surprised me because they were all 20s+ faster than me in the mile in middle school but never ended up developing any more, they just got their development during youth track and never got farther. One of them supposedly became a great triathlete after college (I was never able to verify that), one ran 4:11 in college, one ran 4:20 in college, and one ran in the 29s for 10k in college. There were a couple other guys that didn't run in college and ended up as low 4:30 guys in high school but for them I can't recall if they ran in the 4:40s in high school. There was also a 4:48 guy a year younger than me who ended up becoming a thrower when he came to high school (he sucked at throwing).
There is a lot of talent out there and I don't think it takes anything more than a little bit of time, building a good team culture, and a coach that inspires kids to stick with running year round instead of doing nothing or doing other sports to draw it out. And the coach can't set artificial limits on the kids, which 99% of coaches seem to do.
OK, so you have no proof and it was i was 40+ years ago that you had 4 or 5. Sure.
Now let’s say you actually had 4 or 5 and you think that was some extraordinary situation. Realize NP had a DOZEN of them!!!!!
If this kind of talent is so common, why won’t somebody, anybody,, post a high school that had anywhere close to a dozen? It doesn’t and has never happened before.
I don't follow middle school running so I really don't know whether something like this would be common. I don't think 4:50 is very fast for a kid who has been playing soccer for a long time or other sports that keep you fit (and I think generally kids were more fit in the 80s since we barely had video games and sports were our only entertainment), and I think given enough time in a large enough school (ours had about 1300) there is eventually going to be a time where there is a confluence of a few kids who pop up at that level around the same time. As none of those kids ever ran very fast in their lives, it doesn't seem that their talent was extraordinary.
Anyway I don't really care if you believe me. And I think that is why Brosnan was successful where so many others are not. He doesn't look at things like this as being impossible; he thinks this kind of success should be the norm and didn't care what anyone else thought about that. He went out and found the kids who could do it, and applied his superior training methodology, none of which is some grand secret, it's just not the useless non-progressive pussified training that most everyone else does. 20-30 years prior to that Pat Tyson did something arguably more amazing at Mead HS in Spokane. What shocks me isn't that Brosnan or Tyson had that kind of success, it's that there are so few coaches who have had that success. And it is entirely because nobody believes there is that kind of talent walking around in their school.
OK, so you have no proof and it was i was 40+ years ago that you had 4 or 5. Sure.
Now let’s say you actually had 4 or 5 and you think that was some extraordinary situation. Realize NP had a DOZEN of them!!!!!
If this kind of talent is so common, why won’t somebody, anybody,, post a high school that had anywhere close to a dozen? It doesn’t and has never happened before.
I don't follow middle school running so I really don't know whether something like this would be common. I don't think 4:50 is very fast for a kid who has been playing soccer for a long time or other sports that keep you fit (and I think generally kids were more fit in the 80s since we barely had video games and sports were our only entertainment), and I think given enough time in a large enough school (ours had about 1300) there is eventually going to be a time where there is a confluence of a few kids who pop up at that level around the same time. As none of those kids ever ran very fast in their lives, it doesn't seem that their talent was extraordinary.
Anyway I don't really care if you believe me. And I think that is why Brosnan was successful where so many others are not. He doesn't look at things like this as being impossible; he thinks this kind of success should be the norm and didn't care what anyone else thought about that. He went out and found the kids who could do it, and applied his superior training methodology, none of which is some grand secret, it's just not the useless non-progressive pussified training that most everyone else does. 20-30 years prior to that Pat Tyson did something arguably more amazing at Mead HS in Spokane. What shocks me isn't that Brosnan or Tyson had that kind of success, it's that there are so few coaches who have had that success. And it is entirely because nobody believes there is that kind of talent walking around in their school.
You’re completely missing the point. You’re taking the situation and making it about how extraordinary Brosnan was. You’re dismissing how unusual and extraordinary the situation was at NP. Brosnan worked hard and understands modern training. There are a lot of coaches who fit that mold (although a shocking amount who don’t), but the amount of talent at that time that attended NP has literally never been seen before and probably never will be.
12 kids on the roster who broke 5:00 in middle school, of which there were two sets of siblings with the proven extreme talent of the Youngs and Sahlmans. It is absolutely mind blowing that was all at one high school. You must not be around high school running enough to realize this isn’t the norm.
People point out the other kids he had run fast outside of the brothers, but they don’t see how good the Applefords, Martinezes and Goldsteins were before they ever showed up at NP.
Literally the only person who wasn’t a VERY good runner before their time running for Sean was Sam McDonnell and it’s only because she was a sprinter in youth track. That’s the closest he’s come to finding a regular kid walking the halls at NP that he developed from scratch.
When you have that many highly motivated, extremely talented kids pushing each other every day in practices and meets, you can understand how that culture can produce excellence. Of course Sean played a role, but without that highly unusual situation of already talented kids showing up, we would not have had a NP like we did.
Name your school. How many is several? How many? i will guarantee you didn't have 5. Prove me wrong.
This was in the 80s. There's no way I could prove anything from back then. I was a 2:22/5:10 9th grader (our 9th grade was in Jr High so we didn't run against high schoolers and did about 10 miles a week during track and most people didn't do cross country since it was at the high school; i didn't even know what it was until I was a sophomore). I ended up running 2:02/4:20 as a senior with my mileage never above 30 a week, and I didn't run at all from Nov until the beginning of Feb at my coach's direction. During my 10th-12th grade years there were a stream of sub 4:50 guys coming out of our Jr High. They should have been a great team but our coaching sucked. They never got a team to state XC. And during my years we had a 1:58/4:20 guy, two others guys who would later become D1 XC All Americans and sub 14:00 5000m runners, and me, and we never got close to getting a team to state in XC. I was the fastest high school miler out of that bunch. We were even in a weak district that got 6 teams through to state and were never close to that, maybe 11th place was our best finish in XC.
About 2-3 years just after me were about 4-5 kids who were 2:05/4:48 types in 8th/9th grade at the same time (across a span of about 3 years). Some soccer and football players who I was tasked to convince to do track instead plus a group of 4 kids who had been doing youth track with the club that I started running with the summer after 9th grade. They all basically ended up being only 2:04/4:30/10:20 type guys as seniors which surprised me because they were all 20s+ faster than me in the mile in middle school but never ended up developing any more, they just got their development during youth track and never got farther. One of them supposedly became a great triathlete after college (I was never able to verify that), one ran 4:11 in college, one ran 4:20 in college, and one ran in the 29s for 10k in college. There were a couple other guys that didn't run in college and ended up as low 4:30 guys in high school but for them I can't recall if they ran in the 4:40s in high school. There was also a 4:48 guy a year younger than me who ended up becoming a thrower when he came to high school (he sucked at throwing).
There is a lot of talent out there and I don't think it takes anything more than a little bit of time, building a good team culture, and a coach that inspires kids to stick with running year round instead of doing nothing or doing other sports to draw it out. And the coach can't set artificial limits on the kids, which 99% of coaches seem to do.
A 2:04/430 guy can run way faster than 10:20, 9:40 at the slowest. Why would you follow your coach’s advice to shut to shut it down over the winter? Distance running is a conditioning sport and you must have known training is year around.
I’ve got a 22 hour drive to do this coming Friday, and am going to purchase Brosnan’s new book on audio (releases tomorrow). Obviously a very controversial and polarizing figure here amongst the shining stars that are Letsrun, but undeniably nurtured along some outstanding athletes from two different families. Newbury was a juggernaut here in CA for a few years, and I’m looking forward to perhaps getting a little inside baseball.
Anyone else curious as well?
Hope you listened to the book. I read it and it’s really good
This was in the 80s. There's no way I could prove anything from back then. I was a 2:22/5:10 9th grader (our 9th grade was in Jr High so we didn't run against high schoolers and did about 10 miles a week during track and most people didn't do cross country since it was at the high school; i didn't even know what it was until I was a sophomore). I ended up running 2:02/4:20 as a senior with my mileage never above 30 a week, and I didn't run at all from Nov until the beginning of Feb at my coach's direction. During my 10th-12th grade years there were a stream of sub 4:50 guys coming out of our Jr High. They should have been a great team but our coaching sucked. They never got a team to state XC. And during my years we had a 1:58/4:20 guy, two others guys who would later become D1 XC All Americans and sub 14:00 5000m runners, and me, and we never got close to getting a team to state in XC. I was the fastest high school miler out of that bunch. We were even in a weak district that got 6 teams through to state and were never close to that, maybe 11th place was our best finish in XC.
About 2-3 years just after me were about 4-5 kids who were 2:05/4:48 types in 8th/9th grade at the same time (across a span of about 3 years). Some soccer and football players who I was tasked to convince to do track instead plus a group of 4 kids who had been doing youth track with the club that I started running with the summer after 9th grade. They all basically ended up being only 2:04/4:30/10:20 type guys as seniors which surprised me because they were all 20s+ faster than me in the mile in middle school but never ended up developing any more, they just got their development during youth track and never got farther. One of them supposedly became a great triathlete after college (I was never able to verify that), one ran 4:11 in college, one ran 4:20 in college, and one ran in the 29s for 10k in college. There were a couple other guys that didn't run in college and ended up as low 4:30 guys in high school but for them I can't recall if they ran in the 4:40s in high school. There was also a 4:48 guy a year younger than me who ended up becoming a thrower when he came to high school (he sucked at throwing).
There is a lot of talent out there and I don't think it takes anything more than a little bit of time, building a good team culture, and a coach that inspires kids to stick with running year round instead of doing nothing or doing other sports to draw it out. And the coach can't set artificial limits on the kids, which 99% of coaches seem to do.
A 2:04/430 guy can run way faster than 10:20, 9:40 at the slowest. Why would you follow your coach’s advice to shut to shut it down over the winter? Distance running is a conditioning sport and you must have known training is year around.
My coach was a distance record holder at a PAC10 school and he took me from 510 to 420 in 3 years in an area where 430 was a dominating win in our conference championship (I won twice and held the conference meet record for 25 years), so I completely trusted everything he said and was committed to following his program to the letter. He wanted me to rest so we could "hit it hard in the spring". I lifted weights and did supplemental stuff in the offseason, ineffectively (I was 5'7 105 lbs so def did not put any muscle on). I was improving year over year so I thought everything was fine and my coach was a genius, but now have the perspective to understand just how destructive that was to my progress. My high school coach's philosophy, like many others out there, was "save it for college", a philosophy that I am now totally against. I don't believe in overtraining either, as that was what I did as soon as I hit college, and I never improved my short distance times.
You say 2:04/4:30 guys should run 9:40. I agree. But they didn't. I ran 202/420 and 950 and I was definitely built for long distance and not middle distance. When I first started I was a natural at 3200m, it was my best event for sure. Later my coach became hyper focused on speed endurance and I did a lot of really dumb workouts like 8 x 300 avg 43.5, real lactic burners and never anything smart like 6 x 800m at threshold.
He was in his first years coaching and really trying the Coe/Brooks Johnson approach, and not giving us what he did, lots of easy mileage and endurance/threshold work. When I look back at it it's mystifying to me, but that was a lot of the US distance running scene back in the late 80s, early 90s and the poor results were everywhere, a big exception being Mead HS. I had a couple Mead guys as teammates in college and when they heard what I did in HS they said "man that sounds really hard, our workouts were much easier"
Hope you listened to the book. I read it and it’s really good
What is good about it?
Well it’s not just about workouts, but about culture, mindset, and what it really takes as what was done to build something special at an unlikely place. Highly recommend for any coach, athlete or anyone really
I just finished reading Beyond Fast and it was definitely different from what I expected. I totally get why Chris Lear was brought in. There is that same play by play, day by day behind the scenes vibe. Honestly, it had way more inside info than I thought it would. I loved Running with the Buffaloes, and I really loved this one too. It beats your typical training book
I just finished reading Beyond Fast and it was definitely different from what I expected. I totally get why Chris Lear was brought in. There is that same play by play, day by day behind the scenes vibe. Honestly, it had way more inside info than I thought it would. I loved Running with the Buffaloes, and I really loved this one too. It beats your typical training book
I just ordered it on Amazon. Excited to see the hype
I finally got around to reading this, and it was really really enjoyable.
I'm from the UK and didn't have a strong opinion on Brosnan going into it, nor did I have much knowledge of the US high school system, so I went into it with an open mind.
The thing that stood out to me the most was Brosnan's passion. He just went above and beyond constantly to improve the Newbury Park team. It seemed like having success in the sport really gave him purpose, and I'd suspect that he's desparate to get involved in the sport again. He doesn't seem like the sort of guy that would be content with living a regular life away from running. I hope things work out for him.
I get why he rubs some people the wrong way, but I feel like we need more maverick characters in the sport. We've already got enough of the boring, bureacratic types.
My favourite part was the epilogue at the end where he described being in the stands to watch Nico Young run the 10k at the Paris Olympics, it really put a bow on things nicely and put a smile on my face. I'd recommend the book for sure!
I finally got around to reading this, and it was really really enjoyable.
I'm from the UK and didn't have a strong opinion on Brosnan going into it, nor did I have much knowledge of the US high school system, so I went into it with an open mind.
The thing that stood out to me the most was Brosnan's passion. He just went above and beyond constantly to improve the Newbury Park team. It seemed like having success in the sport really gave him purpose, and I'd suspect that he's desparate to get involved in the sport again. He doesn't seem like the sort of guy that would be content with living a regular life away from running. I hope things work out for him.
I get why he rubs some people the wrong way, but I feel like we need more maverick characters in the sport. We've already got enough of the boring, bureacratic types.
My favourite part was the epilogue at the end where he described being in the stands to watch Nico Young run the 10k at the Paris Olympics, it really put a bow on things nicely and put a smile on my face. I'd recommend the book for sure!
He was more than content living a regular life away from running prior to NP. He had a hard time holding down jobs and having any success. The NP situation was the biggest blessing to Sean. He owes an awful lot the Youngs and Sahlmans.
He was more than content living a regular life away from running prior to NP. He had a hard time holding down jobs and having any success. The NP situation was the biggest blessing to Sean. He owes an awful lot the Youngs and Sahlmans.
You literally don't make sense lol. You said he was 'more than content' before NP, as if he was happy and doing fine before NP, and then said he was having no success and couldn't hold down a job before NP in the next sentence. Pick one, was he doing fine before NP or not?