IU not going to Nationals :(

If you knew what you were looking at you would have a different opinion. In 2005 IU lost one of the Jeffersons and McLeod to injuries, as well as Sullivan and Dixon to be kicked off the team. So them making nationals was pretty good considering they lost 3 of their top 6 that year. If you take away 3 of IU's top 6 this year they are screwed. Also, notice that Chapman kicked two guys off the team for not believing in what he believed in. I have a hard time believing Ron Helmer would kick off one of his top guys for drinking or not being the right culture for the team. From the sounds of what is going on there now I would be terrified to run for chapman if I was currently on the team because I would be looking over my shoulder to see if I was going to be cut for not doing what the coach wanted.

Chapman struggled in 2005 due to the injuries and making sure his team would be good in the future by getting rid of the "bad guys". In 2006 IU was still recovering from losing all but one of their scholarship runners. Everyone is going to have a down year when you lose 2 Jefferesons, HAAS, and Redman. Just like IU will struggle when their sophmore class who are all their scholarship money graduate. I just hope they get the same production before they leave as chapman would have gotten out of them.

Chapman recovered nicely from his down years by signing a sick class and Helmer is now getting the privilage of coaching them. If Helmer would have come 2 years earlier he would ahve been screwed and if he would have come 4 years later he would have been screwed.

By the way everyone on the team who has run a race came to IU to run for Robert Chapman. Thats alot of guys who believed in this piece of shit coach. How many of them went to Georgetown to run for Helmer?

Just like always, if you are a pro Chapman guy, you learned to be an apologist. It goes with the territory. Chapman NEVER finished better than 12th in the country. Meanwhile teams like Butler and Eastern Michigan have. This is while IU has better facilities and Big 10 kinds of money, and has better academics. Face it Chapman sucked at the National level. Any team in the Big 10 that goes a decade of finishing no better than 12th SUCKS. Most knowledgeable AD's are aware of this and that is why Chapman will have a tough time ever getting a coaching job at a D1 school.

I am looking at the only thing that matters - final results.

We agree on one thing - IU invested a ton in 2007 and all those guys have three years to improve. Why not back off and lets see if that happens?

Rumors on conduct that you have no way of proving or for them to refute are what ruins boards like this. Do you have police reports to back this up or should we just take you at ANNONYNOUS word?

Finally, I am not attacking Chapman or his runners, I am defending IU XC. The rosy glasses some are wearing on the past results are not accurate. I said his was a record to be proud and I meant it but so are the past two years with the MAJOR exception of the last two meets. But as disapointing as the last two meets were, they are still well within the past results that are being presented as the glory years.

To the current team. Keep training hard and know that the vast majority of the hoosier nation is rooting for your future success.

Teams like Butler and Eastern Michigan typically have 5-8 scholarships in distance.

Indiana under Chapman never had more than 3 - 3.5. The year they were 12 they had something like 2.2 scholarships on the start line. The year they were 16th, they had less than 2.

A pretty good record from where I sit.

You're an idiot. Look at the guys on Butler's and Eastern Michigan's rosters. I'm pretty sure you'll see some guys that are not from the United States. And you're right. Coaching an NCAA champion, runner up, All-Americans at national meets is awful. That sucks so bad. And since when is getting 12th at nationals a bad thing? Could they have done better at times? Absolutely. Unless you are a school with unbelievable talent, depth, and lots of scholarship money devoted to distance runners (which IU is not) then you will have down years. I'm not saying that he never made a mistake and is the greatest thing to happen to track and XC. Everyone could agree that he did not always do the right things as far as training (like every other coach in the world), but you and a lot of other people make it seem as if he is the worst thing to happen to the sport. So I may be a pro Chapman guy who is sometimes too positive, but you are one of those losers on the complete opposite end up the spectrum. You truly believe that he did nothing right at any point while at IU and I can assume you feel the same about his pro group, which is absurd.

So, that's water under the bridge or as my retarded boss says

"that's water under the park".

Tha past is gone..long live the past....

All these guys KNOW whether or not they wanna be there, whether they love to train and are overjoyed at the blessings their genetics have given them.

I for one love the winter only for one reason and that is to watch these guys up at Gladstein.

(my only gripe is to watch runners race only 4 laps of a 15 lap race)

I'd give anything to have been as good as these guys are (and I worked hard enough)

and I just hope they wanna be there and wanna win.

They looked like they wanted to be there at Intercollegiates!....GO HOOSIERS!

Oh! Miller! wrote:

I'm not saying that he never made a mistake and is the greatest thing to happen to track and XC. Everyone could agree that he did not always do the right things as far as training .

blah blah blah blah and you my friend are an apologist.

Let me get this straight. EMU and Butler have an advantage when it comes to recruiting?

blah blah blah and you my friend have too much pride to just say "hmm maybe I am a dick when it comes to talking about Chapman and I see that you are trying to come to an agreement about this discussion."

You are stretching to make me sound bad. When did I ever say EMU and Butler had an advantage with recruiting? When did I bring up recruiting? One reason why those two schools beat up on a lot of people most years(especially Butler beating up on IU) is because they have more money and give it to foriegn runners. I don't even know why I'm saying this since I didn't even bring it up. I want to stop posting on here so please let me try to close this out. I agree with you that Chapman isn't the best coach in the history of all sports in all the world. I agree that he hasn't always performed to the max at nationals. I agree. All I am saying is that I don't understand why people make it seem like he was just awful. It makes no sense. None. Can you at least say "I don't think Chapman is that great of a coach. But he does do a pretty good job. Not great in my opion. But decent." Please.

I think Chapman did a great job and I think Helmer is doing a great job. The kids I have talked to @ IU would run through a wall for Helmer and that is all that matters. Should have done better the last two meets, didn't, figure out why it happened, move on and let's all cheer them on.

point is this....

CHAPMAN LIVES.

the end.

I just want to clear up what people are talking about when they say that Chapman had an average finish of 2nd at big ten's.

During the 8 years that chapman was there, wisconsin finished with an average finish of 1. That is to say that they won every year. The next best AVERAGE finish out of the rest of those big ten schools during those 8 years was IU's average of 4.7. So, IU had the second best average during those 8 years.

Hope that makes sense to all you doubters out there.

It didn't seem possible to me that 4.7 would be the 2nd bets so I went to the MGoBlue website and found that during those 9 years Michigan had the following finishes @ Big10s:

1998 1

1999 2

2000 7

2001 2

2002 3

2003 2

2004 5

2005 5

2006 2

Average 3.222222222

I think 3.22 is better than 4.7. At least by my math.

The UofM results got me intrigued so I went to Ohiostatebuckeyes.com and found the following Big10 results for the Bucks in 1998-2006.

1998 6

1999 4

2000 6

2001 5

2002 2

2003 3

2004 6

2005 2

2006 7

Avg 4.555555556

That moves IU down to 4th for that era. Still very good just interesting how factual some internet chat claims really are. Let me know if I am missing something here????? The info is in the public domain.

OSU also finished 3rd at Big 10s last year. This year was awful, but know they redshirted a couole studs.

Helmer will also do much better at conference in the distance area, whereas Chapman never came through for the tyeam consistently.

Haas and Jeffersons were notorious for doing fantastic maybe 1 our of 5 and the other 4 being DNF's or very bad!

Yeah like when Sean Jefferson would be an All-American each year in XC. Again, awful.

I'm going to stick up for the smaller guy in this. Part of the Big 10 problem is that the coaches want everyone good to walk on and they get too arrogant. That is built in to the "prestige" of the Big 10. Anyone who coaches in the midwest knows that IU, Michigan, Ohio State want 9:10 3200 runners to walk on, or get their obligatory book scholarship. Any Big 10 school has huge built-in advantages in recruiting. Now take Butler and Eastern Michigan, or Miami. What recruiting advantage do they have over IU, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State? The answer.....none. So certainly those smaller schools will usually give out more scholarship money to athletes that are a cut below what the Big 10 coaches want (except in Butlers case). But then the smaller schools have to deal with small budgets that don't allow them to get to the best meets, outfit their teams with the best equipment, blah, blah, blah. The coaches have to coach them up to get them to compete. There is no way, ever that a Eastern Michigan, Miami, or Butler should compete with a Big 10 school. Ever. But they do. Good coaches who work hard and don't ignore talented high school athletes can always get it done. Look at Portland. Right in the backyard of Oregon and Washington, yet they get it done. So my main point is that I don't care how much scholarship money is in one of the smaller schools (and the estimates listed are way off) they should NEVER beat a Big 10 school if the Big 10 school is doing what they should.

All of these Chapman panzy asses are the same. They throw out ridiculous statements like "we were the 2nd best team during the Chapman era", then they are proven wrong. They simply go to another argument.

Chapman is a nice guy that underachieved and can't find another coaching job. Still a nice guy. Most of his defenders are athletes that feel guilty because they were some of the underachievers. There were some respectable but inconsistent performances from Haas and the Jeffersons. Most people in the big 10 feel that all 3 of those athletes would of had greater success at Wisconsin or Michigan or Ohio State. It no longer matters. Chapman is not now and will never coach in the big 10 again. But YES he is still a nice guy.

I was a guy who ran under 4:20 for 1600 3 times in high school and when i went to IU Chapman treated me as if i SHOULD make nationals...he made me reach for goals that probably were a stretch given my talent level, but that is what a good coach does. Most 4:20 guys would love to run 4:03 in college, but to me it was a disapointment because coach always wanted me to shoot for being better. He truly believed in me and anyone else who wanted to work hard and succeed at a high level. That being said its tough when you only have a couple of scholarships to work with, especially if the guys with money are injury prone and you have to rely on average walkons like myself. Im proud of what we accomplished during my time at IU, even if i know we could have done much better at times. I never ran on a team with less than 3 indiana HS walkons in the top 5. I hope and believe that the current IU guys will have great careers under coach helmer and more importantly that they have a great time at Indiana University and being on a DI team together. Its an awesome experience and i learned a lot and met some of my best friends during my 5 years at IU. Good luck to everyone during track still running distance for IU, and to Jordan Kyle and Mark Fruin, former IU runners running at NCAAs on Monday!!

I would say they have one substantial advantage in that many small schools can/have decided to compete a distance-only program and most Big-ten schools are expected to compete in track.

Very difficult to recruit an all-Brit distance team @ IU and still have enough money for the track guys needed to compete.