Best Women's Coaches on the West Coast??

I graduated a few years ago from a california school and had friends who ran at many others. here's my opinion on the following female teams/coaches:

USF: Helen is intense, but she'll make you fast. team has consistently been on the rise. finally qualified for ncaas this year.

UCSB: Dolan is also very intense but I liked him on my recruiting trip. Expect to run big miles and if you can handle it, you'll get fast.

Chico: like USF, runners here improve. takes no namers and makes them fast over the course of their careers. D2 but always a solid team.

Stanford: patti sue didn't do a great job with the high school she coached, but stanford is still a very fast--top tier team and you can't beat the academics.

Oregon: obviously good, intense, go there if you want to run with the big dogs.

LMU: variable results from runners. some never ran well, others improved and stayed great.

UCLA: the only people I know who have gone there were very talented in high school and then totally tanked it in college. obviously great academics

ASU: consistently very good

Berkeley: Sandoval is a jerk, inconsistent team results from year to year, though had a good season this year. again, good academics

Gonzaga: on the rise. watch for tyson to do big things, his previous coaching experience and quick improvement at gonzaga already says a lot

UC Davis: not as good recently as they were 10 years ago but still a solid choice, both academically and athletically

Santa Clara: another sort of variable, but on the rise. had an all american recently. New coach Montoro should do good things in time

Pepperdine: has improved runners but not to the extent I thought. waiting for Radnoti to do big things. Still recruiting 19:30 type girls but they get faster.

CSU Fullerton and Long Beach: nobody gives them attention but they have talented runenrs sometimes. I'd pick them over most UCs-- for running, not academics

Portland: consistently strong in the WCC, frequently on the verge of NCAAs. runners here develop.

MAKE SURE YOUR DAUGHTER LIKES THE SCHOOL FOR OTHER REASONS THAN RUNNERS. AND MAKE SURE THE TEAM ISN'T FILLED WITH EATNIG DISORDERS. Those are my single two biggest pieces of advice. If she's happy, she'll run well. Good fit and healthy team attitudes are key to that.

The most important thing to keep in mind was already mentioned in an earlier reply: You want to choose the best COACH, not the best RECRUITER.

Very often those two qualities are not one in the same. Developing female runners to run improved times in college is a difficult balancing act. Many of the "top" programs don't develop runners, but just get a new crop of talent to burn through year after year.

Remember, you might buy a car from the best salesman, but you don't rely on the salesman to do maintenance or keep it running.

Pay attention to roster size and how individual runners have improved over their careers. And obviously your daughter needs a program with runners fast enough to help her reach her potential.

I would take a look at the following schools, all have solid programs, great coaches and have a track record of developing runners (not just one or two):

UC Santa Barbara, University of Portland, University of San Francisco

It is kind of strange to think about it. There are a number of good high school girls coaches in Southern California. They are able to develop talent year in and out. But very few good college women programs in Southern California.

fat, slow and old wrote:

It is kind of strange to think about it. There are a number of good high school girls coaches in Southern California. They are able to develop talent year in and out. But very few good college women programs in Southern California.

Not really. It's a much different coaching job getting novice athletes to improve than it is to get experienced, presumably already "training mature" athletes to improve.

Pac Man wrote:

Erin Dawson at Arizona is as good as any of them.

And unfortunately does not have a team to coach anymore. She resigned.

Way to go Li.

Most of the schools in the west have good coaches, competition and facilities.

I have coached high school distance athletes in California for 15 years. I have sent runners to every university in the west coast. Without bashing anyone or playing favorites, here is my honest opinion on sending an individual to one of these schools to run.

Arizona- Good

ASU- Good

Cal- Good

CSUF- Not Good

CSLA- Not Good

CSUN- So-So (New coaching staff)

LMU- Good

Pepperdine- Not Good

Oregon- Good

Oregon St.-Good

SDST- Not Good

Santa Clara- Mixed Results (Be careful)

Stanford- Good

UCDavis- Mixed Results (Be careful)

UCLA- Mixed Results (Be careful)

USC- Good

USD- Not Good

USF- Good

Washington- Good

Wash St.- Good

Sorry. I left out a few schools:

CPSLO- Good

UC Irvine- Good

UC Riverside- Good

Biola- So-so

LBST- Good

former ca collegiate wrote:

MAKE SURE THE TEAM ISN'T FILLED WITH EATING DISORDERS.

This is the best advice so far.

Hank Moody wrote:

Whoever brought up Symmonds....I'd really like to hear that story...why would have Sullivan noticed a 1:55 800 runner out of Idaho...especially when he only coaches women. Not calling you a liar I just have never heard this story.

Kelly Sullivan and Matt McGuirk are both close friends with Mike Dilley in Boise (where Symmonds is from). I believe Dilley brought Symmonds to their attention initially, but I'm not 100% positive about that. Willamette has done quite well with Idaho recruits in general.

I was coaching at Willamette at the time, and the story as I heard it was that Symmonds had won the 800/1600/3200/4x400 State titles for the 2nd year in a row (plus XC as a senior), running a 1:53 with 58/55 splits ... at altitude. There was clearly immense talent there, but you wouldn't have known the extent of it just from looking at the results.

Dan

I agree about watching out for eating disorders, but would caution that in some cases top girls enter a program already borderline disordered or with a mild case of anorexia or bulimia and it just gets worse quickly in college due to the increased stress. You can't blame the coach for that unless it was obvious the girl was sick and s/he recruited her anyway. This is a widespread problem. What I think is more important is how those girls are later managed by the coach and medical staff.

former ca collegiate wrote:

UC Davis: not as good recently as they were 10 years ago but still a solid choice, both academically and athletically

Won the Big West Conference in 2011. Maybe not as 'good' as the DII glory days look on paper, but easily more depth and quality than a decade ago.

6th, 7th and 8th in the region past three years after struggling in first year as DI team.

Check the stats.

Oregon they have the best coaches in the Country and the Oregon women are freaking locks to win both the indoor and outdoor NCAA Championships this year. OOOOOOOOOOO

Boise is not at altitude. He also did not have such drastic negative splits. Also, his HS times screamed talent- 1:53/4:20/9:30's out of the level of competition Idaho offered at the time was huge. Surprised he wasn't recruited more.

rager wrote:

Boise is not at altitude. He also did not have such drastic negative splits. Also, his HS times screamed talent- 1:53/4:20/9:30's out of the level of competition Idaho offered at the time was huge. Surprised he wasn't recruited more.

I looked it up and found an alleged altitude of 2,842' for Boise. That's in line with what I've heard previously and definitely enough to adversely affect distance runners ... probably 15 sec over 5k, but I'm not sure how much for a mid-distance race.

I don't think anyone would question that 1:53/4:20/9:30's is very good and worthy of more recruiting attention, but by no means did it indicate how good he would become. The context is what made his times very promising.

And I obviously wasn't there to watch his State meet, so I can't personally vouch for the splits. That's why I said it was the story as I heard it... But given your assertion that Boise is not at altitude, I'm inclined to stick with what I've been told elsewhere. :-)

Dan

Not high enough to get a conversion. If he ran sub 16 by a long shot on real cross country courses, and ran in the 9:30's, you can sure as hell bet his mile time would have been faster if he was running negative splits like that. You're an asshat, If someone has lived their entire life at 2800 feet I really doubt that they will notice at all the effects of such a low elevation. If more coaches would have paid attention to what his training was in high school (NOT OVERTRAINING HIM EVERY SEASON), what kinds of races he ran his marks in, and his range, I think it would have been pretty friggen clear what he was going to become as long as he stayed healthy.

rager wrote:

Not high enough to get a conversion. If he ran sub 16 by a long shot on real cross country courses, and ran in the 9:30's, you can sure as hell bet his mile time would have been faster if he was running negative splits like that. You're an asshat, If someone has lived their entire life at 2800 feet I really doubt that they will notice at all the effects of such a low elevation. If more coaches would have paid attention to what his training was in high school (NOT OVERTRAINING HIM EVERY SEASON), what kinds of races he ran his marks in, and his range, I think it would have been pretty friggen clear what he was going to become as long as he stayed healthy.

Actually... if you look at the NCAA altitude adjustments, the rough formula ends up being:

y = 121873ln(x) + 1660.7 (R-squared value = 0.9971)

meaning that the best fit for the NCAA conversions table would go down to 1660.7 feet for any difference, though that difference doesn't become "SIGNIFICANT" until ~3k feet.

101.00% of sea-level standard is at 2873.38 feet (meaning 16:40 5k @ Boise ~ 16:30 5k @ Sealevel)

So... not hugely significant, to be sure. But it is at high enough altitude to effect aerobic events to some extent. Probably the biggest factors for HS times not representing the caliber of athletes is the lack of competition (lower population) compared to bigger states and states closer to bigger population areas. But, at nearly ~1% for the main population center for Idaho (more for most other areas), times run in Idaho are bound to be slightly slower than times run in, say, the vast majority of California.

She did? Can this be confirmed?

If she's really open to going anywhere, Villanova or Georgetown.