It’d be hard to not mention Mike McCabe of Union Catholic NJ. When he took over there, they had a decent boys team and practically no girls team. Very sprint focused.
if you look at the last 10 years, he’s transformed both programs and they are consistent sprint and distance powerhouses. Boys team has won the XC state championship recently, he’s had individual champions across multiple disciplines. That’s all before mentioning the girls team.
obviously getting SML as a talent helps your resume, but the continued growth since her has been insane. They were a sprint/hurdle school in the mid 2010s, now they are one of the top distance programs in the country. The girls have won the XC state champs and qualified for NXN the last 3-4 years, they’ve set national records at 4x8 and DMR, but continued to be a dominant force in the sprints, hurdles and jumps. McCabe is coaching most of these athletes across all disciplines.
he’s at a private school so yes he can bring in talent, but having talked to him, he’s taking his time with them. Last year, Paige Sheppard was only running 3-4 days a week. He told me his goal was to build her up over 4 years to get her to running 6 days a week and 40-45mpw. That’s development and leaving something in the tank for the rest of their career. Even with SML, he clearly cared about her long term trajectory, it would’ve been easy for him to try and get her on the Olympic team in HS (which they did) and do that through rushing her progression.
McCabe is one of the best of the best, and honestly deserves to be running a college program.
The answer is Timo. It isn’t close. He doesn’t kill his guys just to win XC. Every year he has a stud runners on the track, not just a team full of good runners.
Most outstanding coaches in high school produce top individuals, but struggle with the team because they care about X’s and O’s more than they care about building team culture.
Timo has found a way to do both. His runners continue to improve in college and they genuinely love the sport. Not just winning.
Most “great” high school coaches are just crazy humans who build cults. This isn’t just running related, it’s in most sports.
I say this as a person who has coached more state champions than I can count. If my kids wanted to run, I’d move to American Fork.
I always appreciated my high school coach. He may not have been the best, but he installed good workout and race habits, put us in positions to succeed, and made us better people. Most importantly he didn’t run us into the ground, almost all of my teammates that chose to compete in college went on to improve and make a positive impact on their college rosters. Sure he could have ran us at 70+mpw and really pushed us to “high school greatness” , but I appreciate that he focused on our health and wellbeing and kept us at 40-60 mpw. My only criticism of the man was his hesitancy in running us in multiple races in track, it made it hard to adjust to that in college.
Bruce Edwards. Small, public school, depressed town, no tradition of athletic success in any sport. long before he coached German Fernandez, he coached decades worth of Riverbank teams to success
I suppose you’d have to say Jim White, even more so.
No, he didn’t. At Riverbank, German is the guy in school history to break 4:30 and 9:30.
How do you know this? It's not correct anyway. Bruce's career started in the 70s, he had many fast dudes. Plus, when stacked up against similar competition, his teams were nearly unbeatable.
The OP was looking for coaches that had success at non prototypical CC powerhouse schools (private, large-wealthy-suburban with "loose" attendance boundaries)
Pat Hadley coached at Valencia High School in Placentia, CA. This incredible woman coached a boys cross country team. I coached at another OC high school and marveled, respected, and wept when she passed away. I could list her victories and accomplishments, but they pale in the love and dedication she shared with her boys. So as you looks at the successful programs and list national titles, my mind immediately went to a petite woman wearing the school colors of Valencia High School with her boys surrounding her at the California State Meet the year before she died.
The answer is Timo. It isn’t close. He doesn’t kill his guys just to win XC. Every year he has a stud runners on the track, not just a team full of good runners.
Most outstanding coaches in high school produce top individuals, but struggle with the team because they care about X’s and O’s more than they care about building team culture.
Timo has found a way to do both. His runners continue to improve in college and they genuinely love the sport. Not just winning.
Most “great” high school coaches are just crazy humans who build cults. This isn’t just running related, it’s in most sports.
I say this as a person who has coached more state champions than I can count. If my kids wanted to run, I’d move to American Fork.
I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud.....there are no less than 50 coaches in the country that could take AF and replicate that success.
His team is built full of runners that live a very conservative Mormon life, they train at altitude.
American Fork High School has an enrollment of 2,335 students in grades 10-12.....give me a break.....this is like comparing Univ of Texas to Tulane.
Same with Soles at Herriman: Enrollment: 2,415 students. Grades: 10-12.
It’d be hard to not mention Mike McCabe of Union Catholic NJ. When he took over there, they had a decent boys team and practically no girls team. Very sprint focused.
if you look at the last 10 years, he’s transformed both programs and they are consistent sprint and distance powerhouses. Boys team has won the XC state championship recently, he’s had individual champions across multiple disciplines. That’s all before mentioning the girls team.
obviously getting SML as a talent helps your resume, but the continued growth since her has been insane. They were a sprint/hurdle school in the mid 2010s, now they are one of the top distance programs in the country. The girls have won the XC state champs and qualified for NXN the last 3-4 years, they’ve set national records at 4x8 and DMR, but continued to be a dominant force in the sprints, hurdles and jumps. McCabe is coaching most of these athletes across all disciplines.
he’s at a private school so yes he can bring in talent, but having talked to him, he’s taking his time with them. Last year, Paige Sheppard was only running 3-4 days a week. He told me his goal was to build her up over 4 years to get her to running 6 days a week and 40-45mpw. That’s development and leaving something in the tank for the rest of their career. Even with SML, he clearly cared about her long term trajectory, it would’ve been easy for him to try and get her on the Olympic team in HS (which they did) and do that through rushing her progression.
McCabe is one of the best of the best, and honestly deserves to be running a college program.
If someone is on the cusp of winning state titles and/or receiving a scholarship, it doesn’t make sense to undertrain in HS to leave something in the tank for later in their career. Many HSers have trained hard enough to reach their then potential and went on to continue improving in college. HS distance running is not the minor leagues for college.
Many LR posters are obsessed with HS distance running and it would be off putting if many of the top runners weren’t trying to be as fast as possible.
No, he didn’t. At Riverbank, German is the guy in school history to break 4:30 and 9:30.
How do you know this? It's not correct anyway. Bruce's career started in the 70s, he had many fast dudes. Plus, when stacked up against similar competition, his teams were nearly unbeatable.
The OP was looking for coaches that had success at non prototypical CC powerhouse schools (private, large-wealthy-suburban with "loose" attendance boundaries)
I was referring to his time at Riverbank and got the times for guys other than Fernandez from Athletic.net. At least while he was at Riverbank, he couldn’t pull great runners from out of a hat.