When I get interviewed, sometimes they ask about my coach... should I really say my coach did nothing?

Wow. You just described pretty much everything wrong with our spoiled, self-absorbed high school athletics programs. "I wouldn't appreciate a coach unless he was making me faster". "He gets paid to make you faster..." Please let me know where you coach, i am ready to apply. Here it is $1300 per season. High School athletics is not 'club' or 'personal coaching'.....i wish, but get real. Did you ever consider that MAYBE our little TV star might possibly be the only one who has that opinion of the coach - - there could even POSSIBLY be other people on her private team.

Coaching at the next level wrote:

I would never recruit an athlete that spoke poorly about their coach.

1. It shows an inability to accept personal responsibility.

2. All coaches prefer appreciative athletes.

3. If you lack respect for your current coach, you will almost always feel the same way in college.

So if her coach is a worthless piece of crap she needs to kiss his ass and praise him even though they did little if anything to get the runner where they are in order to prove herself to you as a D1 coach?

I have known HS coaches who were there for no reason other than they wanted the extra cash the gig paid, not because they enjoy or even understand running. That's what all of the nifty little books are for right?

whoa, you are exactly right - the purpose of a coach is to make people slower.

Damon Martin said at a camp that in an athlete he looks for the 8-10 inches above his head, not his legs. He also said that some of the best coaches in the nation are at the high school level.

Skirting the question by talking about other positive things seems to be the way to go. Most reporters who cover HS track/cc don't really care, they just want a quote or two to stick in the middle of their recap.

College coaches, on the other hand, are trickier. A coach who is recruiting you DOES care. If you choose to badtalk your hs coach when talking to college coaches, come prepared. Have specific workouts in specific circumstances or specific pieces of detrimental advice/counsel that he gave you to cite. The conversation can go one of two ways:

Coach: What kind of a program did your coach have you running?

You: Unfortunately, my high school coach wasn't the source of the majority of my training. His training wasn't working for me and I had to assume somewhat of a self-coach rule

Coach: What was wrong with his program?

You: I didn't like it

Coach's thoughts: Taking this girl seems like a gamble, she might be uncoachable.

-OR-

...

Coach: What was wrong with his program?

You: It was really out of line with modern training philosophy. For example, in X situation he had us do Y workout, and in Z situation he had us do M workout, and before N race, which had the situation of S, he told us R, all of which runs counter to what I've gathered to be the generally accepted philosophies and it showed with our results because we performed G when our past performances or fitness indicated we should have been H.

The latter portrays you as an athlete with legitimate (or at least arguably legitimate) grievances against her high school coach, who probably has extra room for development as a result. The former portrays you as a girl who didn't like her coach and so rebelled.

From the title, I thought this was about some inappropriate coach/athlete behavior.

0/10

Brett Favre Syndrome wrote:

"Dear College Coach, while my high school coach was very supportive, in all honesty they didn't seem to know much about training. Over the summers I took the initiative to read and learn about current training methods and so I have pretty much coached myself. I would be happy to outline for you the type of mileage and workouts I've done the past few years. I am looking forward to college running specifically for the opportunity to have a talented and knowledgeable coach, such as yourself, coach me, so I may focus excelling at school and running."

Always tell the truth, you will feel better, and your new coach will ultimately respect you for it.

This isn't going to fly. Coaches have seen and heard it all. Most I know can ask the right questions to see what type of person you are, and evaluate whether or not you're the type of athlete that will fit into their program. If I was given the above explanation, I would ask every question under the sun regarding the high school coach's training, what problems/disagreements the runner had, where she obtained her info on the training she used, how that training positively influenced her performances, etc. In the end, you'd probably come to the conclusion that the statement above: "I am looking forward to college running specifically for the opportunity to have a talented and knowledgeable coach, such as yourself, coach me," would last only as long as everything was working exactly along the athlete's preconceived notion of how seh should be trained. When thing's stagnate or don't go well, she'd probably be the first to complain, seek a transfer, whatever suited her needs.[/quote]

--You are totally full of crap.

This (telling the truth, classily) WILL fly IF she is telling the truth AND CAN BACK IT UP BY DOCUMENTING HER WORKOUTS TO THE NEW PROSPECTIVE COLLEGE COACH.

Tell the truth, ALWAYS tell the truth, even if you have figure out how, and then practice how to do it diplomatically.

I would not want a kid at my college who could not ACCURATELY represent their experience.

Most Smart college coaches can intuit or sniff this stuff out anyway (lame high school coaches.)

I don't coach and I don't see what that has to do with anything.

The point of a coach is to make you better, why else would you want one? Go run for fun on your own if that is what it is about for you. So what if she might be the only one with that opinion of the coach. If the coach made everyone else on the team faster but me, I'd still be pissed off about it.

I'd come clean to my HS coach and work with him to make a good training program for myself, even if that means the coach saying, "keep doing what you're doing". "My coach worked with me to hone his program," isn't bad signage to hang, makes you sound more like a turnkey instead of a major project. The contact periods are long which gives 4-years plenty of opportunity to find a safer bet, especially for those who cast a wide recruiting net. Sorry about the rhyme. If you're decent, no matter how bad they take your story, someone will take you eventually to fill a hole that they failed to fill.