Newbury Park - is it the coach or the kids?

I was mostly speaking of vision of most coaches, few strive for greatness. Few have ever gotten kids to believe the way these great coaches have.

I've never coached a 9th grader who ran sub 5 before entering freshmen year so I dont know what I would have done with the brothers.

Regarding potential champions, look at the body type and athleticism of the students in HS. I worked in schools that would get 90 kids trying out for the basketball team. These kids could play all day and often did. Many were 5'10" and about 120 pounds. Very few ever ended up running track. They'd rather play recreational ball than run.

Then again I coached poor kids in an inner city.

runnerch wrote:

I think one other factor that no one mentions is the importance of a role model that is a few years older. Nico showed how dedication and hard work (with a lot of talent) can result tangible success and something to strive for. He helped pave the way by showing the younger kids what is possible and what can be accomplished. It's one thing for a coach to tell them that but if it is a former teammate or brother if can mean a lot more.

Jeez. German's role model was likely to have been someone that barely broke 11:00. Virgin was probably one of the first guys to ever run XC/Track at his HS.

Anyone that has coached one great runner can also coach 4 such runners simultaneously. By the criteria I see on this thread, Walt Lange was a genius when he coached the Mastalirs and incompetent in the years when his best runner only managed 9:20.

Runninglame wrote:

kjhyyghh wrote:

Does anybody know if there are any talented kids from the feeder programs that will come to NP in the next 2 years?

The feeder programs are all of Southern California. They better hope there is some other siblings coming along because based on that freshman class, ouch!

Curious...do CA schools have districts for schools? How easy is it to go to another school?

Do all the kids live in that district? Just curious.

It's both - but more the kids. You can't judge a coach on one team (or a few teams with the same core kids. These kids would have been national Champs with any above average coach. It's clear that they are once in a generation type of talent. I could coach them to be repeat national Champs next year.

That said it takes a great coach to push these kids to the level they have achieved. They wouldn't be this good without a really strong coach. So you have to give him credit for that. But an equivalent coaching level of greatness to what these kids are doing would be to win like 7 out of 10 national championships or something like that. It's a lot harder to quantify coaching greatness.

Luv2Run wrote:

Runninglame wrote:

The feeder programs are all of Southern California. They better hope there is some other siblings coming along because based on that freshman class, ouch!

Curious...do CA schools have districts for schools? How easy is it to go to another school?

Do all the kids live in that district? Just curious.

We had to provide an address to get our children in HS out here in the Sacramento suburbs. It's a good HS and I've heard of people using a relative's address to get in and it doesn't seem to be strictly enforced anyway.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Ghost of Ward Cleaver wrote:

How large (grades 9-12) was you high school?

I did not understand your last sentence?

He claims he would lucky to coach some of the most talented runners in history to run 9:20. If he's an average coach than others would be doing the same thing which would mean no runner in the U.S. would break 9:20.

In the U.S., there are about 270,000 boys that compete in HS XC. Presumably, most of the kids that go out for it have at least some talent and out of this group, only a tiny fraction of a percent can run close to as fast the NP top 3. How could there possibly be such talent in of a pool of Soccer players or guys that don't participate any sport.

How large was your high school?

It's the kids who are encouraged to run fast with other fast kids. He is a good coach but he got lucky with 2 families' gene pool. Many of the NCAA champs and Olympic qualifiers have parents who were the same caliber. Don't be fooled about what training can do at this level.

This poster is right or very close. 90-95 percent is the talent of the runners, not the coach. How anyone can say otherwise is ridiculous. There are too many examples to provide and most of you won't get it anyways. Ghost of Ward Cleaver is on some cannibas right now or some spiked Gatorade, who knows? That is terrible logic.

I'm honestly curious as to how exactly Sean Brosnan got the best talent in the entire country to go to Newbury Park before it had produced a single great distance runner. Please enlighten me on this exceptionally lucky coach.

I'd also ask whether it was a coincidence that Niwot, the champion girls team and with one of the top boys, again, or the Texas school with the girls winner had people near the top, or that Newbury Park had a girl unrelated to Youngs and Sahlmans finish 6th in the country. Was it sheer luck that York High School was among the best in the country every year for decades? If you say it's just luck and coaches don't make much of a difference, then you're kidding yourself, giving excuses for not being the kind of special coach that gets close to national championships every year. But they are out there.

mister chau wrote:

How do you know other coaches couldn’t do what Brosnan is doing with that kind of talent? Nobody has ever had the chance. That 2019 freshman class is the best to ever be at one school. EVER!

EVER? Talking in such definite is....well....makes you an expert. Or a God. Lots of talented kids out there with B-A-D coaches. Lots of kids out there with uncommitted coaches. I looked about 15 years ago in CA there were 98 kids that went 4:20 or under. I immediately and still think about how many of those kids had B-A-D or uncommitted coaches and could have been better. Someone else mentioned on this thread you gotta recruit. I will be God-Like and state there are plenty of GREAT runners not out for XC or any sport. Tim O'Rourke who knows a bit about the sport says in his clinics that there is a championship XC team on every high school campus. Stop making excuses and change your ways. I think the real question is what percentage of the potential are you getting out of your athletes. True...there's something you cannot control. But there is a lot that you can. Brosnan obviously takes the extra time in planning and training execution to prepare these guys. One month at altitude? That's not only talent. The great Chuck Noll stated something along the lines that , "Athletes that pay attention to the little things will come out on top." Well....maybe that's an advantage Brosnan has on everyone right now from a coaching standpoint.

If it's 10% the coach, then a coach has a significant effect.

oldoldrunner wrote:

80% runners. 20% Coach.

For me Cantù is the answer to this question. He ran 4:17 as a sophomore I know Brosnan says 4:20 is not fast for a high schooler, but 4:17 is very good for a sophomore. Cantù is very talented, but coach has not been able to bring him to the level of their 5 and 6 runner.

The coach can give the work outs but he can’t give them talent and most importantly mental toughness.

Mental toughness was shown by Martinez at the California state meet. After a great performance at the Clovis invitational he was their 7th up to the state meet, at the state meet he bettered his Clovis performance That is what mental toughness looks like.

I thought he was sick or injured this fall. If that's the case, would you adjust your balancing a bit?

Wise Old Man wrote:

Ghost of Ward Cleaver wrote:

+1000!

Just three years ago Doug Soles was the greatest HS coach ever….Brosnan must be good, and over time his fortunes will rise and likely fall. We can circle back in 20 years and assess then….unless by then he’ll be coaching NAU.

I got to know Doug a little as we are in the same area and he spend 10,000% more time going through the coaching process than people spend typing on this message board to unfairly evaluate him. And when he's not spending his actual time he was thinking about way to better the process.

xczvzxcv wrote:

I'm honestly curious as to how exactly Sean Brosnan got the best talent in the entire country to go to Newbury Park before it had produced a single great distance runner. Please enlighten me on this exceptionally lucky coach.

The odds to win the California lottery are about 12M to one and there's always a person that buys the winning ticket.

I did the same workouts as every other kid on my HS team including most of the summer runs. There was a 2+min spread from me to 10th man.

A friend of mine coached HS for years and one year had a sub 4:10, a sub 4:20 and 3 more sub 4:25 guys. He thought he had figured out "the formula". The following 5yrs he had zero under 4:25.

I know another guy who coached Brevard, Appy St, VT, and now a school where he has Collegiate record holders. GREAT coach. At each school, the times got better than the previous.

The common theme of all of the above examples is... TALENT. Good coaching helps, but cannot overcome a large talent deficit.

NP will never equal these results once their current top 4 are gone. He is an excellent coach, though.

This post i idiotic on some level. The 2021 NPHS XC is the BEST there has ever been in CA and the NATION. Is this expected to happen EVERY year? Simply silly to think so -too many factors havee come together and worked out for that to happen. Future teams atNPHS will likely be good because of a solid and structured program, but to be this good again soon, or regularly is not realistic.

Good one!

If it's all about talent and coaching has very little to do with anything, why do so many talented kids do nothing in college and yet other programs are consistently strong and often even develop walk ons?

At the high school level, think within your state, how can SOME small schools (schools with 9-12 enrollments under 1000, or even 500) consistently have strong programs and consistently develop runners? Yet, within that same state, many of the biggest schools never have a successful cross country runner? Shouldn't there be way more "talented kids at schools over 2000 students vs. school with less than 500? I see the same thing in the pole vault, high jump and shot put for example. Talent is needed but without a coach it often doesn't even go out for the sport.

Can you provide a couple of examples of the little things that the NP runners do that resulted in 3 guys beating Ritz's course record? Did Ritz do them as well or would he have run 30 seconds faster had Bronsan been his coach? The month at altitude is undoubtly enjoyable for the kids but won't result in the bros running faster.

Apparently Brosnan has revolutionized distance running training. Is it only a matter of time before other coaches steal his ideas and 50 HS guys in the U.S. run 8:40? What could he accomplish in other sports? The sky is the limit.