What IN THE WORLD are the Newbury Park boys doing??

Athluckydotnet wrote:

blue 7 wrote:

We keep discussing all the factors that have made the NP team what it is this year, and of course the talent of the NP4 has been highlighted as an outlier occurrence. But I also think about where the NP program was prior to Brosnan. Same school, same demographics, same local running clubs. But what did NPHS produce regarding distance runners? Not that much from my memory. So beyond the Xs and 0s of coaching Brosnan has done a terrific job in cultivating the culture that's there now. I'm sure it took a lot of work in communicating with everyone in the community, from school administrators to youth track clubs, to families of runners, etc. No doubt he was greatly aided by the success of Nico Young. Nico's success convinced parents of motivated youth runners to head to NPHS rather than to Thousand Oaks H.S. or Camarillo H.S., etc. And now the program is at a point where it just keeps going at a high level. This season of course is an outlier, and next season will also be terrific. Everyone expects a dropoff after that, and that's probably true. But with Brosnan there a dropoff might mean the top runner around 9:05-9:10, and then the others filtering down from the teens to the nine twenties. I don't expect his "off years" to be any worse than that, and possibly better than that.

Looking through athletic.net, I saw 11 kids that have run under 5 minutes in middle school (that’s not counting Nico and Jace who didn’t break 5 from what I could tell)on NP since Brosnan has taken over the team. The previous 5 years I couldn’t find any (Ethan Ronk, who broke 5, was there for 1 year before Brosnan and 3 after Brosnan came). Maybe he is coaching at the youth level or maybe he is a darn good recruiter, but if you’re looking for a reason they are so much better, it’s because the incoming talent has been so much better.

blue 7 wrote:

the brain of Jonathan Marcus wrote:

ya'll do know that recruiting is against the rules, right? recruiting the hidden gems who got cut from the soccer team or blazed a PE mile is the legal kind of recruiting that most coaches talk about. combing the area youth track teams or middle schools is a CIF violation.

The success of the program is the recruiter. The Sahlmans live in Camarillo, IIRC, and I think the Youngs do as well. For all I know their decision to come to NPHS could have been based on academics. But beyond them kids who love running that might have attended other local high schools in the past might convince their parents to attend NP due to the success of the program. As long as the families initiated the desire to come to NP without any contact from Brosnan there are no rules broken.

blue 7 wrote:

the brain of Jonathan Marcus wrote:

ya'll do know that recruiting is against the rules, right? recruiting the hidden gems who got cut from the soccer team or blazed a PE mile is the legal kind of recruiting that most coaches talk about. combing the area youth track teams or middle schools is a CIF violation.

The success of the program is the recruiter. The Sahlmans live in Camarillo, IIRC, and I think the Youngs do as well. For all I know their decision to come to NPHS could have been based on academics. But beyond them kids who love running that might have attended other local high schools in the past might convince their parents to attend NP due to the success of the program. As long as the families initiated the desire to come to NP without any contact from Brosnan there are no rules broken.

hdhasjkdhk wrote:

What is happening with Brosnan is the logical conclusion of the improvement at higher levels (professional and college) trickling down to high school. I might be getting the specific details wrong but here's what I have observed over almost 4 decades of following track:

In the 80s, there was very little true professional support for track athletes. Many of the people trying to break through in the professional ranks had actual jobs and trained the best they could while working full time. Though there were some attempts at creating professional groups (Reebok Enclave for example), it didn't really lead to big results most likely because the money wasn't there to allow people to 100% focus on the sport. It feels like things changed around the time NOP started; then our professionals started getting some serious results and momentum started. More teams like NOP formed. Now we have a lot of pros who have great contracts and don't need to think about how to pay the bills.

A little after the pros started to train smarter and more professionally, things seem to have taken a giant leap forward in college. You didn't see a lot of college guys running under 13:30 until about the time Rupp, McDougal, and Solinksy were around, then suddenly guys were breaking 13:20. Now look at college: lots of guys approaching 13:10. Supershoes is part of it, but I think the effect (while significant) is overstated.

Since college is getting so difficult to compete in, some high school coaches have started training their athletes more professionally, realizing that young kids can do much more than we gave them credit for. Brosnan isn't the first, but seems to be the most dramatic example. He has raised the bar in high school and you'll probably see a lot more coaches investigating how to coach high school kids like pros instead of the way it was when I was around in the late 80s: "Take the winter off and rest your legs for track season" and "I only want you to run 30 miles a week so there is some upside for you in college". There was a reason people sucked so bad in the early 90s. We were losing valuable years of development that can't be made up later on. As more coaches begin training kids year round and not being afraid of them running an hour a day, if a team wants to be competitive , they'll have to up their game. It will spread and raise the level everywhere.

Look at the high school lists and imagine that coaches like Brosnan are still few and far between. It would not take a lot to see the number of Brosnans multiply by 10 over the next 10 years. I predict that within a decade we could reach a time where there are 10 high school guys under 4:00 for the mile in a given year, maybe more.

Let's watch and see what happens!

SDSU Aztec wrote:

hdhasjkdhk wrote:

What is happening with Brosnan is the logical conclusion of the improvement at higher levels (professional and college) trickling down to high school. I might be getting the specific details wrong but here's what I have observed over almost 4 decades of following track:

In the 80s, there was very little true professional support for track athletes. Many of the people trying to break through in the professional ranks had actual jobs and trained the best they could while working full time. Though there were some attempts at creating professional groups (Reebok Enclave for example), it didn't really lead to big results most likely because the money wasn't there to allow people to 100% focus on the sport. It feels like things changed around the time NOP started; then our professionals started getting some serious results and momentum started. More teams like NOP formed. Now we have a lot of pros who have great contracts and don't need to think about how to pay the bills.

A little after the pros started to train smarter and more professionally, things seem to have taken a giant leap forward in college. You didn't see a lot of college guys running under 13:30 until about the time Rupp, McDougal, and Solinksy were around, then suddenly guys were breaking 13:20. Now look at college: lots of guys approaching 13:10. Supershoes is part of it, but I think the effect (while significant) is overstated.

Since college is getting so difficult to compete in, some high school coaches have started training their athletes more professionally, realizing that young kids can do much more than we gave them credit for. Brosnan isn't the first, but seems to be the most dramatic example. He has raised the bar in high school and you'll probably see a lot more coaches investigating how to coach high school kids like pros instead of the way it was when I was around in the late 80s: "Take the winter off and rest your legs for track season" and "I only want you to run 30 miles a week so there is some upside for you in college". There was a reason people sucked so bad in the early 90s. We were losing valuable years of development that can't be made up later on. As more coaches begin training kids year round and not being afraid of them running an hour a day, if a team wants to be competitive , they'll have to up their game. It will spread and raise the level everywhere.

Look at the high school lists and imagine that coaches like Brosnan are still few and far between. It would not take a lot to see the number of Brosnans multiply by 10 over the next 10 years. I predict that within a decade we could reach a time where there are 10 high school guys under 4:00 for the mile in a given year, maybe more.

Let's watch and see what happens!

Leo and Lex are the fastest twins in HS history, maybe even significantly better than the Mastalirs. The Stahlmans are by far the greatest non-twin duo in history. On top of that, the twins’ older brother was among the top five HS GOAT distance runners.

Brosnan won a massive lottery that seems almost impossible. Any average coach or better would get the same results and unless he has access to the entire country, with about a dozen scouts working for him, it has nothing to do with recruiting. There will never be another HS coach this lucky in any sport and certainly not 10. Only a small group of coaches have had even one athlete as fast as NP’s top four and Nico.

I often see “training like a professional” for athletes still in school. They aren’t being paid so what are they doing differently compared to thousands of other HS runners? I’m pretty sure German Fernandez didn’t train as a professional and he’s one of the few HS greats that was comparable to the NP brothers.

Big Kahuna wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Leo and Lex are the fastest twins in HS history, maybe even significantly better than the Mastalirs. The Stahlmans are by far the greatest non-twin duo in history. On top of that, the twins’ older brother was among the top five HS GOAT distance runners.

Brosnan won a massive lottery that seems almost impossible. Any average coach or better would get the same results and unless he has access to the entire country, with about a dozen scouts working for him, it has nothing to do with recruiting. There will never be another HS coach this lucky in any sport and certainly not 10. Only a small group of coaches have had even one athlete as fast as NP’s top four and Nico.

I often see “training like a professional” for athletes still in school. They aren’t being paid so what are they doing differently compared to thousands of other HS runners? I’m pretty sure German Fernandez didn’t train as a professional and he’s one of the few HS greats that was comparable to the NP brothers.

No doubt that Brosnan hit a goldmine as far as talent coming in around the same time. But an average coach would not get these results. Only the coaches that have similar knowledge and experience to Brosnan would get these results. Those coaches are out there but they're not the majority.