Wetmore Haters: What do you say to the nice old man (voice of stern parent scolding ignorant, stupid child)?

I agrew with you. Californian isn't anyone we've heard of, just a big talker.

"Warhurst nearly ruined Alan Webb's career, as evidenced by his resurrection, and he has never won NCAAs in recent memory, individully or team-wise, men or women. The guys he sent to the Olympics still compete in college with the exception of Kevin Sullivan."

How exactly did Warnurst almost ruin Webb's career? He got Webb into the best shape of his life in 2001 when he took 11th at X-C Nationals. Webb may have injured for six weeks in early 2002, but it wasn't career threatening. Warhurst coached Tim Bore to the olympics, as well as Sullivan ,and both were out of college. And he has also coached many other post-collegiate successes, like Meyer being the last American to win the Boston Marathon, for example.

"McDonnell uses buttloads of foreign athletes. If Wetmore culled foreign talent from all over the world he would NCAAs in XC every year."

Stanford managed to win 4 NCAA titles without any foreign athletes. So , by your logic, Vin Lanana is a better coach than Wetmore.

"Wetmore had coached both Culpeppers at some poiint and they made it to the Olympics, as well as a hurt Ritz in 2004. There were three Colorado alums who made it to Athens."

Culpepper graduated from Colorado three years before he made the Olympic Team. During those three years, he was self-coached and improved tremendously. I'd say Wetmore had a small part in his success. As for Goucher and Ritz, both were injured for most of the Olympic year, Ritz was hurt so badly he ran 31:00 at the trials and dnf'd at the olympics. Not a very good job coaching him for the biggest races.

"I call BS on this Californian guy. You're shit. You never ran for a top-five program. You're all talk, you are a never-was nobody, just an average runner with an axe to grind."

Actually, I did run for a top NCAA program. My team was 4th in 98 and 5th in 99. I also finished All-Ameircan individaully. If you don't believe me, that's your problem. But, I'm not the kind of person to lie about my credentials to bolster my arguments. Post your email address and I will write you back proving that what I say is true.

Yup. Good-natured. If you disagree, spend a half hour sifting through the verbal avian flu virus that is the Letsrun.com message board.

Guess you need to head back to sixth grade science class, friend, because "hypothesizing" is a fantastic synonym for "guessing."

And I suppose it's more than possible that you lack the ability to judge personalities based on three sentences typed on an Internet running forum, but that's just my guess. By your count, most every contributor who disagrees with you is "immature."

Really? Perhaps you might begin work on constructing a little scooter Wetmore can use to follow his runners on their easy days, replete with pointy instruments to induce pain when necessary to "slow them down."

Until you do, your statement is among the more ridiculous you've ejaculated.

are you mike wisniewski?

No, but I lived with him for two years. Very nice guy. One of the most genuinely nice people I have ever met.

Just a few points:

1)Just because most things written on this board are worse in nature than what you wrote, doesn't make your statement good-natured.

2)Hypothesizing is in fact making an educated guess, using what little information you know. That is exactly what I did in your case.

3)I don't deem people who disagree with me immature. I deem people who call others morons in a blanket statement at the beginning of a thread immature. And, in fact, you were calling people morons who disgreeded with your belief that Wetmore is a great coach.

4)Actually, you don't need to drive along in a little scooter to tell people to slow down. You need to build their trust so that they listen to you when you tell them take it easy on recovery days. You need to show authority so that the runners know their will be consequences for pushing easy days too hard. And coaches can easily tell when their runners have been hammering too much on the easy days.

5)The last statement you make further supports the idea that you are extremely immature and incapable of presenting a valid argument without resorting to poor insults.

I see...it's a Michigan inferiority complex. First win your conference meet. You guys have a nice, solid program but sorry bud, Wisconsin, Colorado, Stanford and Arkansas are the Big Four these days. Someone might sneak in there during an off year, but these are the teams that get it done year in and year out. Wisconsin and Arkansas rely on foreigners, Stanford relied (under Lananna's watch) on an illegal number of grants in aid to supplement scholarship money and had their pick of the Footlocker litter. Colorado does more with less talent and it begins and ends with their tremendous coach Mark Wetmore.

Also the statement about Alan Culpoepper is false. He ran 28:25 for 10K in college, as well as 13:33 for 5K. His improvement was solid after college but not astronomical. Plus, he admits that he applies Wetmore's training philosophy and still converses with Wetmore as a sounding board about training from time to time. So does up-and-coming coach Brad Hudson.

You've pretty much criticized every good program out there. Just thought I'd give you some real ammo.

To, start, I am not criticizing good programs. I think Stanford, Wisconsin, Arkansas, and Colorado all have excellent programs with good coaching. I criticised Wetmore for his record of injuries, and that was only to counter the original poster on this thread who was touting Wetmore's greatness. Lannana/Gerard, Schoemacher, McDonnell, and Warhurst have coaching flaws as well. I went to Michigan, and I noticed a lot of runners were wounded and burnt-out by the outdoor track season. I don't have an inferiority complex about my school. I knew that we were a consitent top 10 team and not a national contedner in cross country.

Wisconsin does not rely heavily on foreign athletes. Besides Bairu, who else is foreigner in their scoring 7. Wisconsin's greats during the past decade have been American guys- Downin, Shoenfelder, Fein (before he went to Oregon), Cordez, Vanderhoof, Teg, Solinski, Spiker, Festa. Stanford did not rely upon an illegal number of grants; if that were the case, their program would have been penalized or reprimanded, and that never occcured. Stanford has not been proved to have broken any rules; you are merely speculating.

Culpepper did improve tremdously after college; he went from 28:25 to 27:30 something. 28:25 doesn't get you close to the olympics. The fact that he uses some of Wetmore's principles and touches base with him from time to time does not substitute for the fact that he has chosen not to be coached by Wetmore.

Wetmore Bashers? wrote:

The blame lies upon his athletes. Reference Goucher's 22 mile run in Running with the Buffaloes. It was way outside Wetmore's recommendation in terms of pace. Same with the guys hammering there easy days.

Then Wetmore needs to fire them. If they will not follow instructions, or will not be coachable they should not be on the team, because Wetmore is not coaching them -- they are coaching themselves.

That was one workout in 1998 after his good friend Chris Severy had just died in that bike accident so Goucher was likely a little over-the-top emotionally then. Goucher did crush everyone at NCAA nats that year, who was it he destroyed? Oh yes, Laget, Meb, Abdi. Goucher has wised up about overdoing it and just needs to stay healthy.

Californian wrote:

Since you are so fond of bringing up their better than expected success this year, maybe you should also mention how Colorado finished worse than its ranking four out the past five years at NCAAs before this season.

Rankings are so useless... it's sad so many people rely on rankings given by OTHER people to determine how good a coach is at Cross Country.

OBVIOUSLY rankings are off if a 4th place ranked Colorado can finish 1st against a heavily 1st ranked Wisconsin.

I think Wetmore is good enough to be able to have, in near future, both men/women's team and individual champions; 4/4 complete sweep.

That's a decent point, but the person to whom I was repyling was totuing the fact that Colorado finished 1st this year after being ranked 4th going into nationals. So, I brought up the fact that four out of the past five years, Colorado finished worse than their ranking.

Is Wisniewski still running?

He's not on Team USA Minneapolis anymore. So, I would assume, no. But, then I haven't really kept touch with him, so I'm not certain.

Mark Pilja is the California dude on this thread. He used to be "ttc" (two time champ) until he was called out on another thread. He will also start a thread about himself shortly after running a mediocre road race and talk about "the comeback". He has always been a jealous bitter little fella.

Actually, I am not and have never been ttc. If you notice, ttc still posts on this forum. He just started a thread on Monday about Andrew Gerard not being a good enough coach. I've been posting under my current name for almost a month. Take a look at his writing style, its much different than mine. Nice try, though.

Not that I necessarily agree with Californian, but what does it matter whether or not he is ttc or whoever. when you start going after who a person is, it looks like you've given up. No need to do that in this case... actually, when is there ever a need to do that?

you guys are boring.