Wake Forest Coach John Hayes

rojo wrote:

Nothing to see here wrote:

Everyone big mad cause Hayes was playing 4D chess and the others are playing checkers.....

I texted and spoke John again today. When I spoke to him yesterday, I didn't get the full story. I failed to realize that in addition to getting Rokcy more work he also wanted Rocky to run fast with the hope that others would go with him and he'd tell his other 5k guys to chill out and come from behind and score some big points. Fewer guys went with Rocky than he anticipated perhaps because Rocky went out super fast as a UNC runner (who also didn't finish) took it out in 30 for the first 200.

John Hayes texted:

First of all it’s a conference championship so I have duties to Wake Forest and my athletes. While I’m not at all opposed to doubling EVERYTHING has to be in the best interest of the young men and women I coach. I’m also a competitive guy so points do make a difference if it makes sense. As I said, Rocky had a 1500 semi and final, Luke had the same but Luke had done that double effectively 2 years ago. Jo Jo didn’t make the 1500 final and nether did Bryce. I wanted to find the right thing for each of those young men and I believe I did.

My obligation is not to coaches from other universities, people on Letsrun and their obligation is not to me. When I have the Wake Forest Invite I want to put every athlete in that meet in the best situation to get a regional standard. I do not favor my athletes when I seed. I do what I think is the right thing to do. However this was the ACC championships. I do not care to help anyone but the kids on the Wake Forest team. We knew the early pace would go hard and were hoping Bryce, Luke and Jo Jo would hang back and get some guys at the end. It didn’t go perfectly we did pick up a few points and Rocky did get some extra work in. In the end, everyone came out of it healthy and in a good position going into the NCAA first round.

Peach Pit wrote:

I was wondering why Rocky Hansen paced 3200 of the 5k at ACCs seemingly so Parker Wolfe could get the record, and the WTW article had the answer:

LetsRun wrote:

As for why they didn’t just have Hansen run the whole race, Hayes told LetsRun on Monday afternoon that Wake Forest wasn’t in it for the team title and it “didn’t make sense given his injury history and background.”

Why didn’t they tell the others what they were doing?

“We had no obligation, nor desire to tell anyone in the field what we were doing. It was cool to have Parker go along. We had to get stuff done…We felt comfortable doing that. I’m going to do what’s best for my kids,” said Hayes. dog whistle sound effect

I really like the idea of having a teammate make the pace hot in a championship race, because team tactics make the race so much more interesting, and there's the dynamic of doing it for the team, which adds another storyline to the race/meet. I thought it was really funny that Hayes didn't do it for any of those reasons, and he was just like "Ah, Rocky's gotta get a workout in anyway and it'd be funny to see Wolfe chase him" and so he did it. Would love to see more of this kinda thing

pensacola runner wrote:

WagonWheel1745 wrote:

“Hayes told us that Hansen hadn’t had much volume in terms of quality this week and he wanted him to get more work in after running the 1500 earlier that day (he was 6th in 3:45.73). Hayes said they “waffled back and forth” between having him run the first 3000 of the 5000 in the 7:55-8:00 range or doing a workout on a Boost Treadmill (ACCs were at Wake Forest). In the end, they put him in the race.”

Logic doesn’t make a ton a sense to me but he’s one of the best coaches in the NCAA so I’ll give him the benefit, although I don’t love it.

Also I guess you could argue it’s not much different than someone have a slower teammate take the race out pretty quick.

I follow the sport pretty closely, and not sure I see WF as a consistent top 10 distance program, so what is 'one of the best coaches' based on. OK, this year was good in XC, but hasn't Ricky himself woefully underperformed in the big meets?

GrandSlamRules wrote:

Peach Pit wrote:

I was wondering why Rocky Hansen paced 3200 of the 5k at ACCs seemingly so Parker Wolfe could get the record, and the WTW article had the answer:

I really like the idea of having a teammate make the pace hot in a championship race, because team tactics make the race so much more interesting, and there's the dynamic of doing it for the team, which adds another storyline to the race/meet. I thought it was really funny that Hayes didn't do it for any of those reasons, and he was just like "Ah, Rocky's gotta get a workout in anyway and it'd be funny to see Wolfe chase him" and so he did it. Would love to see more of this kinda thing

Lol imagine telling your AD you had your top athlete run a 3200m workout and drop out during ACCs because "we had to get stuff done" 😆

pensacola runner wrote:

WagonWheel1745 wrote:

“Hayes told us that Hansen hadn’t had much volume in terms of quality this week and he wanted him to get more work in after running the 1500 earlier that day (he was 6th in 3:45.73). Hayes said they “waffled back and forth” between having him run the first 3000 of the 5000 in the 7:55-8:00 range or doing a workout on a Boost Treadmill (ACCs were at Wake Forest). In the end, they put him in the race.”

Logic doesn’t make a ton a sense to me but he’s one of the best coaches in the NCAA so I’ll give him the benefit, although I don’t love it.

Also I guess you could argue it’s not much different than someone have a slower teammate take the race out pretty quick.

I follow the sport pretty closely, and not sure I see WF as a consistent top 10 distance program, so what is 'one of the best coaches' based on. OK, this year was good in XC, but hasn't Ricky himself woefully underperformed in the big meets?

rojo wrote:

Nothing to see here wrote:

Everyone big mad cause Hayes was playing 4D chess and the others are playing checkers.....

I texted and spoke to John again today. When I spoke to him yesterday, I didn't get the full story. I failed to realize that in addition to getting Rocky more work he says he also wanted Rocky to run fast with the hope that others would go with him and he'd tell his other 5k guys to chill out and come from behind and score some big points. Fewer guys went with Rocky than he anticipated perhaps because Rocky went out super fast as a UNC runner (who also didn't finish) took it out in 30 for the first 200.

John Hayes texted:

First of all it’s a conference championship so I have duties to Wake Forest and my athletes. While I’m not at all opposed to doubling EVERYTHING has to be in the best interest of the young men and women I coach. I’m also a competitive guy so points do make a difference if it makes sense. As I said, Rocky had a 1500 semi and final, Luke had the same but Luke had done that double effectively 2 years ago. Jo Jo didn’t make the 1500 final and nether did Bryce. I wanted to find the right thing for each of those young men and I believe I did.

My obligation is not to coaches from other universities, people on Letsrun and their obligation is not to me. When I have the Wake Forest Invite I want to put every athlete in that meet in the best situation to get a regional standard. I do not favor my athletes when I seed. I do what I think is the right thing to do. However this was the ACC championships. I do not care to help anyone but the kids on the Wake Forest team. We knew the early pace would go hard and were hoping Bryce, Luke and Jo Jo would hang back and get some guys at the end. It didn’t go perfectly we did pick up a few points and Rocky did get some extra work in. In the end, everyone came out of it healthy and in a good position going into the NCAA first round.