HAS UCLA'S MIKE MAYNARD LOST HIS MIND?

As a current ucla runner id just like to say that I came to this school for one reason, Jack Hoyt. There is no one out there with a better mindset, or better experience. The new freshman class is beyond exceptional, with many national performers, especially in the jumps/multis. With this class as a building block, there will be a revolution in the coming years for the track team.

Yeah, Jack is a very good coach. It's pretty comical reading the "no-name coach" comments. Last time I checked, he's coached a woman within a hair of medaling at the World champs, and oh yeah, she's the American Record Holder in the Pent.

Good job, Jack.

UCLA has a gazillion Olympic Medals (2nd to USC) and NCAA national championships (1st in the world).

The thing UCLA needs to do to return to prominence (in all sports) is get rid of Dan Guerrero.

UCLA Athletics is #1 in championships and has never been able to compete for attention with it's immediate Hollywood surroundings. UCLA academically is Top 10 in the world and nobody around West L.A., Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica even cares. Hell, UCLA and The Rand Corp (Santa Monica) invented the internet in the 1970's and USC stole the lead US Gov't contract and manages the internet from it federal lab in Marina Del Rey.

This is a distance-dominated site. Just so you know, Hoyt is not an "average 'Jack of All Trades.'" You are welcome to ask his multi-event people, Harry Mara, Dan O'Brien, Fred Samara, Sharon Day-Monroe, Ashton Eaton, Kevin Reid, Kip Janvrin, etc.

It can be hard for the average distance person to appreciate expert multi-event coaches and what they bring to the DI powerhouse table. Let me assist.

In the case of Coach Hoyt, most of his time as Assistant Coach of Field Events under Terry Crawford the scholarships went to distance and sprints. It's harder to make a name for yourself when you are busting tail developing walk-ons while a different part of the franchise has the full ride athletes.

Here are two Cal Poly examples:

1. Sharon Day. Okay, she was a full ride athlete. But she was half soccer, half high jump. She began high jump training after soccer season ended. She broke her foot as soon as she started training with Hoyt. It could have been a career-ending break, as it was her plant foot, and she is 5' 8" and jumped 6' at the time (most 6' jumpers are over 6' tall, so… she has a thunderous plant to launch her vertically…). But Hoyt guided her rehab over two surgeries and a year and got her jumping again. It was quite an accomplishment to spare her career, get her to Nationals (after soccer), with strep throat - she didn't win, but she did MAKE THE OLYMPIC TEAM in the high jump a month later. Hoyt also slid in a couple weeks of heptathlon training in events she had never attempted before - completely not part of the scholarship deal - and got her a whole new career started in the heptathlon, for which she was never recruited for. Four years later, she MADE THE OLYMPIC TEAM in the heptathlon. She's been #1 in the US in the heptathlon for a couple years now.

2. John Prader, Pole Vault, jumped 15' 6" in high school. Did not get a big, fat, juicy full ride scholarship to attend Cal Poly for pole vault. In two years, while coaching Sharon Day to the Olympics and all the other men and women in all the other field events, Hoyt coached Prader to jump 17' 6.5" in the pole vault. Two feet in two years. Amazing. Hoyt left for UCLA and Prader went on (crediting Hoyt's coaching) to jump 18' 7" the next season. You see, Hoyt has to develop decathletes from multi-sport athletes who sometimes have never pole vaulted before, so he knows how to coach the vault to beginners in a very technical and efficient way. Efficient, because decathletes have to learn to vault on only one practice every week or two.

To compare, Mike Woepse vaulted 17' 6" in high school and nice, ripe scholarship to UCLA. An awesome athlete. After two years at UCLA, he jumped 17' 6.5". That's when Hoyt was hired. Hoyt oversees pole vault and personally revamped Woepse's technique. His best is now 18' 5.25"

Coach Curran still works as a volunteer pole vault coach and runs the camps. After the first year working as Hoyt's assistant he stated, "The best part of this year was getting to work with Coach Hoyt."

Hoyt is a vault guru. He's a high jump guru. He's a hep guru, he's a dec guru. Heck, he coached a 5' 8" 140 lb. power woman to run 2:09 800 m. and she's still smoking the 100 meter hurdles. There's nothing average about this coach. Maynard knows exactly what he's doing.

"You sound like you are some sort of Deca or Multi-Event coach that thinks that there is VALUE in being an average "Jack of All Trades" at the D-1 level and that THAT is the kind of business model that produces TEAM championships.

What you forget to mention is WHO Mike Maynard just replaced Coach Curran with. It's not like Maynard went out and hired a Dan Paff, Dan Steele, or Harry Mara.

He hired a "Jack of All Trades" guy that has never had an NCAA Champion. Not one.

Meanwhile, Coach Curran just had a Sophomore that was runner-up at the NCAA's and scored 8 of the teams 17 points for UCLA's 9th overall in Des Moines.

Flight 1

1 Jack Whitt JR Oral Roberts 5.65m 10

2 Michael Woepse SO UCLA 5.55m 8

3 Derick Hinch SO Arizona State 5.50m 6

4 Nico Weiler JR Harvard 5.50m 5

5 Cale Simmons JR Air Force 5.40m 3.5

5 Kolby Shepherd SR Liberty 5.40m 3.5

7 Joe Davis SR Virginia Tech 5.40m 2

8 Chase Brannon SO Tennessee 5.40m 1

9 Andrew LaHaye SR Florida State 5.40m

10 Kyal Meyers SO Texas Tech 5.30m

10 Sam Kendricks FR Mississippi 5.30m

12 Michael Viken SO East Illinois 5.30m

13 JJ Juilfs FR Washington 5.30m

14 John Prader JR Cal Poly 5.30m"

Your response to a post 2 years and 5 months later is truly pathetic. You, my friend, are either Jack Hoyt, or you are related to Jack Hoyt. This topic has been dead for 2 years. Nice try Jack!!

Not Coach Hoyt. Thread active 11/14.

Now that UCLA Director of Track and Field Mike Maynard has demoted women's coach John Johnson, what is the next move for Mr. Incompetent. First, Maynard takes over as head coach at UCLA, he reshuffles the deck and restructures the program. He forced Jeanette Bolden out of the program with some back room maneuvers. Next, he opts out of actual coaching, and he hires John Frazier as the throws coach and men's head coach. Then, he hires John Johnson as women's coach, and brings in some more coaches to the program. Finally, in the middle of the school year, Maynard decides to demote John Johnson and make him director of ops, thus, creating more disarray in the UCLA track and field program. What has this guy done since he has been at UCLA? Has he won championships? Or has he just pulled the wool over AD Dan Guererro's head. Show me your championships, Bruins! What have you done lately? I am embarrassed to be a UCLA alum with this con man at the helm. Show me with championships!

Yolanda76 wrote:

The only event Curran is good at is PV. It's hard to justify having a coach for just 1 event and a liability for all the other jumps and combined events.

surely 20some points from a few good vaulters is better than say 12 from an all around field coach, who has improved the team but developed no stars

Its incredibly stupid to get rid of a coach this good, even if he is a one trick pony. I don't buy that he can't coach any other field events though.

8 Clap wrote:

Your response to a post 2 years and 5 months later is truly pathetic. You, my friend, are either Jack Hoyt, or you are related to Jack Hoyt. This topic has been dead for 2 years. Nice try Jack!!

These types of posts are among the dumbest of this website.

I am surprised former Bruin "legend in his own mind" Brian Theriot has not injected himself into this coaching circus. Also, to the prior poster who claimed UCLA is one of the top 10 universities academically...not even close. It is certainly very good, and one of the best public state universities for sure, but not close to top 10 overall.

I think John Jonson was the right move. I'm not going to insult any coach but it was the right move...

I dont get why they cant get field a bunch of good sprinters/hurdlers either. They recruit "blue chip" talent. But they do nothing with them.

Not sure why all these young guys cant do anything. They got Curtis Godin. A legit 10.3 sprinter and where is he now? (injured I'm sure). They have a few other kids running sub 10.5 (which is the sweet spot for developing sprinters) and they cant really do much with them. I HOPE and I REAAAALLY HOPE. They dont ruin the kid they Got from NY (46 low/ 21 low)who could have gone any where he wanted including ANY SEC school but chose UCLA because of the campus/Education and Tradition in track.

Let's hope they turn the sprint program around.

Maynard has just killed off the program. Look at the results, they have nothing.

His throwers seem to be thriving. Distance is ok too. The problem is the sprint program. USC is crushing it this season. You cant tell me Carol Gilbert is that good. I've seen her training and it's decent nothing special. They need a Dan Paff or someone at that level. Anyone who cant take a 10.3-10.6 18 year old kid and they cant get them down to 10 low in 3years is clueless... Sorry.

What happened to Curtis Godin?

100m and 200m state champ 2 yrs ago, and I'm not sure if he's ever run a race at UCLA. Now I don't see his name on the roster.

What happened? and where did he go?

Ask the Academic Director of the UCLA Athletic Department.

Agree on the sprint coaching being the primary reason UCLA is down. USC is killing it but also putting 3x as much money into sprints than UCLA and Caryl is doing a decent job coaching to be sure and those 2 factors will keep them ahead of UCLA. In this current age its easier for Trojans to get sprinters into school than at UCLA where admissions requirements are much stiffer than back in the day when Kersee and Smith were dominating in the sprints.