Why has santos been mentioned here but guy he ran for then worked under for years and mirrors is not mentioned. Let’s be honest - training at most of top programs is very similar now and what makes the difference between coaches here and those not mentioned is those that calm teams down in training august/September, those that help their athletes mentally prepare and those who over years have created a good environment for the kids (coach involvement here is type of kids they recruit). Indeed I ran with one of the coaches mentioned here and he never showed up at practice (afternoon classes or another excuse) and he had a GF so literally only time we saw him was at races - as ‘leader of our team’ certainly didn’t help team spirit and morale.
In my 5 years at Arkansas, John never missed a workout. That was 7 days a week (back then) from late August to mid June. Including workouts after XC nattys until Christmas break. The man was relentless.
its unbelievable that the major sports tv people always say Bobby Bowden etc etc
They both did it on the track and cross country; that’s the sign of a truly great coach. I always thought in the right environment Dan Pfaff and Tom Tellez could have been good cross country coaches.
Tellez won some JuCo state XC titles back in the day.
took Gonzaga from the bottom to getting better every single year with 1 scholarship at first and now 5 . Was recruited there but went to a school with a big name…regretting my decision now
Lyle Weese at MSU in Bozeman. Has been asst coach and head coach for more sub4 milers per capita (size of school) than any other program in history.
You cannot possibly be serious, pretty sure Marcus O' Sullivan has him beat by a bit.....Nova is smaller than the 14,800 Under Grads at Montana State, at 6,700.
One of the really fun things about the college system right now is that there are a metric f@ck tonne of coaches developing athletes at all levels. Outside of the shoes and the covid training, I think the increase in high level passionate coaches is a big reason why the NCAA has never been faster. Makes it hard to give a definitive top 5 because as someone said there's probably a guy in D2 developing boys from 32 to 26:30 in the 8k. Even a lot of D2 coaches at nationally ranked programs do a lot with a little
Look how deep BYU was this year. Their #7 only scored 49 points! That's a sign of good coaching, not "inheriting" a national class team
Look how old Ed Eyestone's team is..every year. He is a good coach, but 23-24 year olds should be good by then.
I don’t go to BYU and I’m not Mormon, so I have no bias here, but what physical advantages does a 24 year old have over a 22 year old? Does it really help that much?
I get this argument for the high school level obviously an 18 year old would have a big advantage over a 16 year old, but does it really matter once people are in their 20s?
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