American Fork has 4 sub-9 guys this season. Herriman has 3.

Peach Pit wrote:

The simple truth wrote:

I’ve never heard anyone say he didn’t do a good job, but why does it have to be the greatest of all time? He was exceptionally lucky to have the Sahlmans and Youngs, but there are MANY coaches who have accomplished more over a much longer period of time. Mostart is obviously more accomplished, along with Soles. Had Brosnan had NXN contending teams a handful of times over the next 10 years, it would have been a more realistic argument, but really 3 historic years with 2 sets of brothers isn’t close to enough to put him in the very upper echelon of all time greats. By the way, Cantù didn’t run 8:57 while Brosnan was coaching. The fact someone is trying to give him credit for what people ran when he wasn’t the coach summarizes how ridiculous people are when it comes to heaping praise on Brosnan.

I didn't say he was the greatest of all time, just that he was a better coach that Mostert. In the same way you could argue Kipchoge is the greatest marathoner ever, but Kiptum was better and just didn't have time to rack up the accolades.

I'd argue that the fact that NP turned around so fast after the joined, and it fell apart so quickly once he left, was due to his coaching abilities. I don't think the Youngs or Sahlmans are Fernandez/Nuguse/Kessler level talents. Pretty far from it, in fact. I think there are dozens of Young/Sahlman level talents running track every year, and most of them just don't get the coaching to reach their potential. As evidence, we can compare L&L to Nico. In March of his freshman year, Nico was 4th at NCAA XC, and in April ran 13:24 to run a U20 record. As of March/April of their freshman year, L&L are pretty far off their HS PBs, much less scoring at NCAAs. Leo did recently run 7:54, but given that Lex ran 7:57 as a junior, and Leo was significantly better than him all year, I don't think it's too impressive. I think they still have the potential to win titles before they graduate, but if they truly were massive talents, I think they'd be running better.

And I'm glad you brought up Soles, because I'd like to use him as my 2nd piece of evidence. He took over Herriman a few years ago, and he's already pumped out an 8:43 guy, and had 3 other guys run sub-9 yesterday. I think he is proof that a coach can show up and turn a bad team into a national title contender within a few years. He did it a bit faster than Brosnan (admittedly coming into a better program, and having far more experience), but the numbers line up pretty well with NP if you take out the Youngs and Sahlmans. 8:43 Jenkins to 8:44 Aschbrenner, then 8:57/8:58/8:59 to 8:52/9:00/9:02. They also both have around 2k students. Tbf that's 6 years for Brosnan vs 3-4 for Soles, but Soles gets the altitude advantage, and Brosnan gets the unique disadvantage of not getting to count his top 5 best athletes.

I think if you put Brosnan or Soles at any school that's comparable in size and wealth to NP/Herriman, they'd be contending for national titles within 5 years. I'll also go ahead and predict that Soles is gonna have at least a couple guys run similar times to NP's best in the next 5 years.

Also Cantu technically did run 8:57 while Brosnan was coaching, but it was Sean's wife. I took for granted that that meant Sean was writing workouts and stuff, but if you don't want to give him credit for that, that's reasonable. I don't think it's fair for you to say I'm ridiculous for giving it to him, though.

The simple truth wrote:

Peach Pit wrote:

I didn't say he was the greatest of all time, just that he was a better coach that Mostert. In the same way you could argue Kipchoge is the greatest marathoner ever, but Kiptum was better and just didn't have time to rack up the accolades.

I'd argue that the fact that NP turned around so fast after the joined, and it fell apart so quickly once he left, was due to his coaching abilities. I don't think the Youngs or Sahlmans are Fernandez/Nuguse/Kessler level talents. Pretty far from it, in fact. I think there are dozens of Young/Sahlman level talents running track every year, and most of them just don't get the coaching to reach their potential. As evidence, we can compare L&L to Nico. In March of his freshman year, Nico was 4th at NCAA XC, and in April ran 13:24 to run a U20 record. As of March/April of their freshman year, L&L are pretty far off their HS PBs, much less scoring at NCAAs. Leo did recently run 7:54, but given that Lex ran 7:57 as a junior, and Leo was significantly better than him all year, I don't think it's too impressive. I think they still have the potential to win titles before they graduate, but if they truly were massive talents, I think they'd be running better.

And I'm glad you brought up Soles, because I'd like to use him as my 2nd piece of evidence. He took over Herriman a few years ago, and he's already pumped out an 8:43 guy, and had 3 other guys run sub-9 yesterday. I think he is proof that a coach can show up and turn a bad team into a national title contender within a few years. He did it a bit faster than Brosnan (admittedly coming into a better program, and having far more experience), but the numbers line up pretty well with NP if you take out the Youngs and Sahlmans. 8:43 Jenkins to 8:44 Aschbrenner, then 8:57/8:58/8:59 to 8:52/9:00/9:02. They also both have around 2k students. Tbf that's 6 years for Brosnan vs 3-4 for Soles, but Soles gets the altitude advantage, and Brosnan gets the unique disadvantage of not getting to count his top 5 best athletes.

I think if you put Brosnan or Soles at any school that's comparable in size and wealth to NP/Herriman, they'd be contending for national titles within 5 years. I'll also go ahead and predict that Soles is gonna have at least a couple guys run similar times to NP's best in the next 5 years.

Also Cantu technically did run 8:57 while Brosnan was coaching, but it was Sean's wife. I took for granted that that meant Sean was writing workouts and stuff, but if you don't want to give him credit for that, that's reasonable. I don't think it's fair for you to say I'm ridiculous for giving it to him, though.

Bottom line is Brosnan has never had ANY success without at least one Young and Sahlman on his team. EVER. He has never done it at any point in his life. Was he just waiting until his 40’s to show his brilliance? Why did his team miss the state meet in his 2nd year coaching? 9th place in his 1st year?

You’ll never know if Brosnan could do it at another school, because he never has. Soles proved he could. You just think Brosnan could.

The Youngs and Sahlmans had as much to do with Aschbrenner’s Appleford’s, etc success as Brosnan by being so hard working and creating a great training group that raised the level for the entire team.

Sub-9s all around wrote:

The simple truth wrote:

Bottom line is Brosnan has never had ANY success without at least one Young and Sahlman on his team. EVER. He has never done it at any point in his life. Was he just waiting until his 40’s to show his brilliance? Why did his team miss the state meet in his 2nd year coaching? 9th place in his 1st year?

You’ll never know if Brosnan could do it at another school, because he never has. Soles proved he could. You just think Brosnan could.

The Youngs and Sahlmans had as much to do with Aschbrenner’s Appleford’s, etc success as Brosnan by being so hard working and creating a great training group that raised the level for the entire team.

Sean was never a NP coach until Nico came in.

2016 & 2017 were the only years in his tenure when there was 1 Young and 0 Sahlmen.

Peach Pit wrote:

Mostart at NP wrote:

So, one title with Nico and Colin who are arguably the greatest 2 high school runners in the past decade. In his two years before the Sahlmans arrived, he barely squeaked into the state meet and missed the state meet all together. He has never had success without them.

And before Brosnan, they hadn't qualified for state in decades. IIRC they hadn't even qualified for league championships in decades.

The guys who were freshmen when Brosnan started coaching at NP were seniors when they won their first national title. I think it's pretty hard to ask for much more than that from a coach. Well, unless you wanted that coach to win multiple national titles and break multiple national records, which Brosnan also did.

To your point directly: You realize that to even make the argument that Brosnan isn't that good, you can't let him take credit for his 5 greatest athletes? I get that they're related, but there are plenty of great runners with twins/siblings that are never close to as fast. And even if you do take the Youngs/Sahlmans out, you've got Aschbrenner, Appleford, Cantu, Goldstein, and Doshi, who ran 8:44/8:52/8:57/9:00/9:02 between 2020 and 2023.