What F-M coach Bill Aris knows that no one else knows...

Absent the actual inside information which nobody here has, all these theories are only speculation. All we can really know is:

1) Aris has a specific program and philosophy.

2) It works.

3) It works better, on average, for girls than it does for boys.

4) It doesn't work for every runner Aris coaches.

I'm so tired of people saying Bill Aris is an amazing coach.

He is amazing at what he does, but what he does isn't coaching. Coaching should set up an athlete for future success. Coaching is about caring about your athletes and not about yourself. Bill Airs doesn't care about his athletes, he only cares about his own ego. It's no secret anymore that FM pushes 80-90 miles per week on their girls and 90-100 on their boys. Whoever can make it through ends up on their varsity team.

These kids are all very young and can recover very quickly for the abuse, but at a price of future development. Furthermore, the ones who get injured are borderline harassed by Aris. In his eyes if you get injured it isn't a product of his training, it's a product of your failure as an athlete.

If you promise high school kids and their parents a national title you can obviously get them to agree to go through whatever awful training to get there, but that's really because they don't quite realize how poorly it's going to affect them.

Bill Aris is an excellent con artist. He is great at peaking high school kids for high school to feed his own ego as a high school cross country coach.

Feel free to not believe me, but I've talked to a lot of his athletes who have told me horror stories about their experiences with him. (verbal abuse, telling kids to push through injuries, harassing other coaches, etc)

Bill Aris shouldn't be held on a pedestal for what he does. Most intelligent NY coaches are disgusted by him, especially collegiate coaches. (look at syracuse with Nick Ryan)

Brojos, don't let yourselves be brainwashed by him too. He sucks.

It's so sad... None of the girls every look happy to win nationals. It almost looks like they're just relieved that the season is finally over.

Also Bill Aris is a weirdo. He was getting a bit to frisky with that dog on stage.

As we say in the hood "haters gonna hate"

Coach wrote:

As we say in the hood "haters gonna hate"

Yes, I am hating on Bill Aris because he ruined the future abilities of athletes I'm friends with. Sorry if you don't understand how that works.

Evidence?

My co-worker ran for F-M. She does not have glowing remarks about the program. She is happy running sub-3:30 for the Marathon right now (26yrs old).

Just look at his athletes PR's from high school and then look at their success in college. Besides a very select group of outliers, most of them never surpass their times from high school, get injured, or plateau like crazy. Is this really that hard for you to get? I'd think that this would be easier for most people to see, but I guess you all love to think that this is a "success story" and then all is well... Sorry to burst your bubble.

I don't know of any great HS programs whose runners excel in college. York? Mead? CBA? Cali schools? If more stories and evidence come out then some of us will reevaluate.

I have no connection to the program, and I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, but Aris seemed to make the awards ceremony all about him (and the dog). His team didn't look that happy, just relieved to have won like they were expected to do.

the girls looked like they didn't know if they were allowed to be happy. It was definately a weird awards ceremony. the second place team looked more happy. I had an FM person tell me a stress fracture in the shin isn't a big deal and you can run through it because it won't cause permanent damage. And he was serious, said aris said it was true. Great coaching. The mental manipulation is his real skill. Every couple years you will have a senior running around the track looking miserable. Not anywhere near their pr's and clearly hating every moment out there. Then they go off to college and never run, they were broken before they even had a chance to try college running.

glj/ wrote:

My co-worker ran for F-M. She does not have glowing remarks about the program. She is happy running sub-3:30 for the Marathon right now (26yrs old).

That is great that at least this woman still runs, and values what running does for her.

my high school track coach had us doing this stuff year-round as well and we won state twice and were top 3 twice in my 4 yearswe had 11 guys who could run a 400m relay split under 51 one year. One wasn't whitewe all believed, and so we all did. and if you didn't, the results were profound. when suddenly a young nobody who has subscribed to the program goes from 2:07 to 2:01 in a few months, you know you'd better work harder and set a different limit for yourself. winning became the standardplus, our coach was cool. we all wanted to hang out with him all the time, so it was fun to be working hard everyday

Billy Bob Stotan wrote:

Aris:

"We do comprehensive resistance work, including squats, dead lifts, power cleans, and presses, year-round. I do the same work as the athletes. For my 60th birthday, I did a 365-pound dead lift.

Our program rarely has stars. My whole process is attempting to take average runners and make them above average, and taking above-average runners and trying to make them great. But it’s not really making them; it’s sharing with the athletes the pursuit of excellence."

Coach wrote:

Almost every school in NYS had access to middle schoolers yet F-M dominates and Saratoga is still excellent.

I don't see the commonwealth of Kentucky and other states that allow middle schoolers doing well in XC.

Perhaps while other coaches are whining and making excuses the great ones are positive and build a culture of excellence

Funny this is your response to what I posted. What does Kentucky or really any other school have anything to do with F-M?

My point is that the culture of excellence is built at a younger age. This is an advantage they have over other states. Other schools and coaches not exploiting that advantage has nothing to do with the basis of the argument. If F-M was in a state that does not allow contact with middle schoolers than they are not as good as they are. They might still be a great team and win nationals but maybe not 10 times with freshman (#1, #2 on team this year) playing a large role.

Otter, You're absolutely correct.

The presence of the dog was weird.

Aris was also the only coach on the podium with the team for interviews

30F wrote:

I have no connection to the program, and I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, but Aris seemed to make the awards ceremony all about him (and the dog). His team didn't look that happy, just relieved to have won like they were expected to do.

+1 I agree. Very strange dynamic it's like he was surprised he was asked about the girls and gave a very generic answer about this year's team. The the demeanor of the girls after winner was a little disheartening to me. Seemingly no joy, like they just did a job and nothing else.

What is the F-M track program like? I took a quick glance on athletic.net, but couldn't figure out the alphabet soup of meets they have in NY. Seems like the kids who dominated in XC were not successful in track.

SlipperyPete13 wrote:

What is the F-M track program like? I took a quick glance on athletic.net, but couldn't figure out the alphabet soup of meets they have in NY. Seems like the kids who dominated in XC were not successful in track.

There typically isn't much to see.

Aris severely limits what his runners do on the track. When his teams first came to prominence (2004, 2005) he used to take them to Penn Relays, Indoor Nationals, etc. When Alex Hatz was a junior / senior, he would take only Alex to big meets. Since then, nothing. Nick Ryan ran the equivalent of a 4:07 mile as a junior, and never got into a "big" race as a senior - no trips to the Armory, no Nationals, not even the Loucks Games. He'll typically run only his top guys at the state qualifier meets, send them to the state meet if they qualify, but that's it.