Pomona-Pitzer Men's Team Coaching Carousel DRAMA

You should be worried because Florshiem, Kirkpatrick, Booth-Genthe, Getachew, and Cunningham are in the transfer portal.

Despite getting downvoted for asking a question- I thought he was the women’s XC coach for many years, and a poster here said there is a new women’s coach, so I’m asking for clarification if anybody knows. That’s all.

Hopefully to D1 (or wherever they can find themselves academically and athletically fulfilled!). Disappointed it couldn't be with PP, but excited to see what they WILL accomplish. Very thankful for what they did for the program and I will continue to root for each of them!

Still not worried for the program. Maybe they won't place as well this year as they would have if people had chosen to stay, but they will find their success again in time. Like I previously said, its the culture of the program that makes it special and those who stayed will continue the values/traditions/mentality that make it such a wonderful team to be a part of. Keep doubting if you want, proving people wrong is what the hens do best ;)

What years did you run there? I’m curious. Cause I coached there from 2017-2020

First let me say that everyone on this website is an entitled idiot who is typing their responses in their mom’s basement. Also if you post anonymously you’re a spineless moron!

Two things can be true at once. Coach Williams is a fantastic hire for the long-term goals of the Pomona-Pitzer athletics. Hopefully she can build on the momentum that the current sprint and jump coaches have gotten going this year. If their website is correct they just had a men’s 100 SR.

Schools like this DO NOT CARE about athletic success in xc or track and field. AT ALL. No amount of championships or records or All-Americans can change that, evidently.

Coach Williams has experience at academic private colleges and yes, is a women of color. There are very few non-white coaches at PP and it is the right move to represent a student body as diverse as Pomona’s with a black coach (Although it is noteworthy that Kyle Flores is Mexican-American).

The XC and distance program is filled with talent right now. If their tffrs profiles are correct they should be returning one hell of a class for this cross and track seasons. Chat GPT could coach a group of 14:03/8:44SC/4:01/14:15 2x XC AA/14:25 guys to a podium in JV D3.

What you numbnuts need to do is get out of your moms basement and try to get that xc job if it ever opens. Hell, Rojo - you always are trying to poach athletes from other coaches. Why not come to sunny California and give this a go?

- A spineless idiot numbnut sitting in his dad’s basement

Im a PPXCer who competed at track and xc nationals this year. Ask me anything. Please be respectful to all coaches involved.

where are your teammates transferring to? There are 5 in the portal.

Assuming you are a PPXCer.... my advice for you would be to run away from this thread. No good will come from it... even if you try.

Current PP runner here: so much misinformation in this thread, but kudos to WeWillSee for a rational reply.

Yes, PP's athletic dept isn't always great with transparency and their priorities are simply not the same as any team here, for better and for worse. Having someone with more of a distance background coach for XC would've been nice. HOWEVER, the rest of our track team is sorely in need of a boost and got moving in great directions this year, and the new hire has great personal and coaching experience in a bunch of events. Our team, esp non-distance, is very diverse just like the entire student body, so it's great to have more coaches that reflect this as well, as most of the athletic dept is white. In addition, Emma DeLira is a perfectly good coach and has lead a lot of athletes to high performances, and her treatment on this thread is disgusting. She deserves way more respect than that. As to previous coaches' departures, Carpenter was before my time (but supposedly bc Tony Boston still had the job despite his dean role. Sticky logistics). Kyle Flores didn't have the master's degree required for PP head coaches, who are also profs of PE and held to really high standards. Disappointing, but rules are rules. I am excited to see what Coach Williams will bring to the program and think everyone should cool their jets and actually let her coach before making dire predictions.

Can you explain what you mean by she's a fantastic hire? What makes her fantastic other than her race/sex?

Did she do anything at Colgate or Cleveland State?

I"m not saying she didn't. I have no idea but assume she didn't if she went form being a head to a lowly sprint assitant at Columbia.

That rule regarding a masters degree is so frustrating. I know first hand several candidates with great resumes were simply rejected for not having one or not wanting to get one. It's sad since these people are being used by the college to be "professors" without being paid like one. AKA it is yet another way private D3 colleges take advantage while leaving their athletes out to dry. Glad Pomona ended up with someone the team feels is a good fit.

Cunningham and Getachew just graduated. One or both may have eligibility left but PP has no grad programs. Florsheim, Kirkpatrick and Booth all going into senior year. All have extra eligibility so once again could be a grad school thing.

Or by not having a MA you’re not qualified. Sorry that’s the rule. Seems pretty fair and open to me.

Coach Williams headed the sprints program at Columbia and turned it from the worst in the Ivy League to very respectable, culminating in 20.4 and 10.4 performances for Chris Balthazar en route to 2 ivy medals and a Franklin field record in the 200. Balthazar was a complete non factor last year, with PRs on 21 high and 10.65z . The 4x400 set the school record and qualified for East Prelims for the first time in recent memory. 400m runner Devon Davey obliterated his previous bests en route to a 46 low and a 2nd place finish at Heps. In under 2 years, she took Columbia from a bottom feeder sprint program to a top Ivy League sprints program. She transformed the careers of the recruits she inherited, and with her only recruiting class, she produced 2 of the 4 runners on the 4x400 team.

I don’t think you’ve coached D1 lol. Also many head coaches leave head coaching to be assistants at better programs. Many situations where being an assistant at 1 school is better than being a head coach at a terrible school. Now let’s see your coaching credentials…

How dare you accurately describe the posters on this board. This will get you banished from this site. Let us degenerates have our fun and give our unqualified opinions on jobs we’ll never get

We don’t understand this language you speak of (hence all the downvotes). There is nothing mentioned about their mile times or how their 5k has improved. How do we know she’s a good coach if we know nothing of her distance abilities??? Please translate this to a language that distance coaches and athletes can understand.

Hard to believe that if those 5 runners mentioned above ARE in the transfer portal (and why on earth would an 8:41 SC guy NOT be), then the PP XC team having another top 5 is is hard to envision. And..whatever happened to the idea of hiring the best person for the job, regardless of what "group" they are a pert of regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender etc - I thought that that was the idea in the first place. Hiring a "sprint" coach for an historically distance-centric program does not make much sense, especially after the huge amount of success that they have had lately.

What the heck is a Pomona pitzer?