Best SUNY school for runnning?

UB ain’t great. It’s a graveyard for good runners in the western area of New York. When’s the last time you’ve seen a stud high schooler do well there? Their coach Todd Witzleben scares good runners away because they know what his program will do to them. No coach in SUNY system likes him from the grapevine. I’m actually friends with the albany coach and boy I have heard lotta bad stuff brewing at UB lately.

i hear these things too. wonder what his deal is. maybe doesn't have the emotional maturity to be a chief.

Consider the source. Albany is absolutely horrific in cross. They didn't even run a complete team at regionals last fall. It is easy for teams at the bottom to hate on other teams because they have nothing to lose.

Same SUNY thread 2 years ago. Looks like not much has changed. Go Cats

When was the last time you guys looked at results? The 90s?

All seems pretty accurate in the last couple years. Where you been boomer?

A few guys like buzby, hilbert and merlino are definitely running at a higher level than they were in high school (what happened with Merlino after '21 cross?) Mid distance kids like Nowak and Puskar have probably shown less improvement. THat is just with a quick glance at numbers from a few kids.

Not sure if this is a case of over looking the track while preparing everybody like a 10k runner for the purpose of cross?

No inside info here.

You could also mention: Loforte, Flannery, Cardamone, Liam Hilbert, Neeson, Hazlitt, Hislop… Then, we could throw it back to: Crimmins, Scheving, Kaiser, Atkins, Van Epps… Oh look, basically everyone at Buffalo is improving! Maybe your opinion is outdated?

Merlino graduated (Computer Science Engineering) in three years. He has a job. He’s still running.

Not many of those guys consistently ran well. Most had maybe 1 good season. Also, for every 1 that does well, 2-3 talented runners never do anything.

No one said UB didn’t have good runners, they said that they get a lot of talent, and don’t produce for a lot of them. When you get 4-5, 9:10-9:25 guys a year and u can only name 5 in the last 5 years that worked out…yeah they have a point.

You sound like a tool as well.

Here are 4 just from last year. And this doesn't even talk about Scheving, Crimmins, Kaiser, Cardamone, L. Hilbert, Atkins, Covell, Van Epps:

Evan Hilbert HS 4:30 1600m - at UB 3:48 1500m

Ryan Buzby HS 4:30 1600m, 9:26 3200m - at UB 3:52 1500m, 14:12 5000m

Tom Flannery HS 4:25 1600m, 9:35 3200m - at UB 4:07 Mile, 8:11 3000m

Scott Loforte HS 4:23 1600m, 9:36 3200m - at UB 4:13 Mile, 14:23 5000m, 29:51 10000m

Not a single one of those guys were 9:10-9:25 like you stated. Have they gotten some highly touted recruits who didn't work out? Yes, but they clearly develop the majority.

hopefully scheving learned something he can bring to canisius.

So which one of these guys listed is the one trying to prop themselves up on letsrun? Tough look for the UB boys here

Scheving will kill the Canisius program within 2 years. He's not ready to be a head coach yet and he doesn't know anything about cross country.

You must be a western New York coach or something because you who I am and all the rest of my team. I don’t get triggered often by the internet and this weird groupie crap but y’all pushed some buttons about my former team. One of my former teammates sent me this and none of this is true. While I had some personal dramas like most people who give af about the sport, everyone loved him and wanted to get better for him. They went hard to represent the school. They could’ve not cared. So while I had sh!t happen to me, you must not know why I “didn’t turn out to be as good” from HS. Let me tell you. Remember the pandemic? Yea so I missed that whole year and then I missed the entire following year because of a hip injury where I thought I’d have to quit running because of it. For as close as you know this stuff about UB, you clearly don’t know anything if you wanna sit around and talk about my name. I missed two straight years of college running and I still came back and did meaningful stuff. While I just graduate transferred after finishing 4 full years, may I remind you I have two full years of eligibility left and I plan to use them. Unless something else brutal happens to me, I don’t think you’ll be saying I fell off. Lotta really good guys got hurt over my years and suffered the consequences because it’s hard as hell at that level to get any momentum back especially after the majority of years were cancelled because of a world pandemic. Plenty people nationwide went out sad af, but I didn’t. And I moved thousands of miles from what I knew was my home for most my life. You only know the surface to any of this stuff about UB. If you knew the personal stuff behind my team, you’re entire view would change believe me. Good luck this fall guys. Y’all know exactly who this is.

Okay, I think this is fair and accurate. The state universities in NY don't have the cachet that Penn State does. In fact I think this is a big reason why many SUNY schools changed their names so that "State" no longer appears: For instance, the University at Albany used to be just Albany State. (Used to be D3, too, back in the day.)

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Out-of-left-field suggestion: Look at Cornell, if you're truly a strong runner and very strong academically. Their four "statutory" (state-funded) schools give NYS residents something like a $20k break on tuition. (My primary MD got her undergrad degree in the Ag & Life Sciences college--smart!) And I've known people who got ungodly need-based financial aid at CU that reduced their family contribution to near zero.

this isn't fair. Penn State at University Park has a lot of cache behind it, mostly because of their football program. if not for that, the Penn State name wouldn't mean nearly as much. I love when I ask somebody what school they are going to and they just say "penn state." Come on, you know why you aren't being more specific. Nobody cares about all the little penn states, outside of their alums. This is true of most schools.

A Penn State Behrend has no more prestige to it than a UB. In fact, far less. Kids in WNY want to go to UB. That is fact. Easy to see when you scan through their roster.

He ran for a good HS program and a decent enough college program. He should have an idea of what a good program looks like. It may not be his strength as a runner, but if he is analytical enough, there is reading material for days to put it together.

Good luck wherever you run next. Certainly not gonna argue with a primary source.