2020 College Track & Field Open Coaching Positions Discussion

Duke Track & Field and Cross Country?

Ogilvie is a nice guy and the multi coach is great. However the program hasn't done much in decades. The worst part is the AD, Kevin White is a former college sprinter and college track coach. He hasn't done much for track & XC. All they did was take the track out of the football stadium.

Look for Duke to elevate one of its Associate Head Coaches to the top spot and for Duke to continue to be middle to lower portion of the ACC.

Hearing more rumbles of Richardson leaving Missouri. Where is he headed ?

I will echo what a few others have said.

Norm is a nice person, with good intentions, but struggled to build a program. I think the biggest issues were his inability to evolve his training methods and his lack of personalization to training. He had a “one size fits all” approach (and it was interval heavy) which tended to only worked for a small subset of people so they could never field a complete team. This was actually pretty different to Kevin’s approach; he took a very individualized approach to each athletes training, identifying what they needed to do to improve and focusing on that.

Duke should have a top team. The financial aid is actually good, not as great as the top ivies, but is need based and is pretty close to what other top institutions offer. The facilities overall are ok, there hasn’t been a lot of money spent on track & field, but that matters less when you have 1) almost perfect weather and 2) miles of trails to train on. The conditions there are so much better than a Princeton or Harvard (I know with Princeton much better than Harvard due to proximity to trails). The academics are top notch, and you have a decent football team and a great basketball team. It offers a lot when you compare it to the other top programs (better overall athletics than ivies so if you are a fan of sports or that culture you will enjoy it, top academics although a notch below the Harvard/Princeton types, excellent conditions for running, etc).

The football team was able to prove what happens when you invest in a sport at duke (good coach, great facilities, etc) as they went from literally not winning a game in a season to bowl games. That being said football brings in money so you won’t see the same commitment in cross country, but even a fraction should lead to solid results.

Who are some names we should be keeping an eye on for the Duke director job?

They already have their guy on staff. Should Duke be getting sprint relays to the NCAA Championships? probably not, but they do. their combined eventers do VERY well. They have a guy that is a student of the sport, a former professional athlete that understands work ethic and teamwork. He has head coaching experience, and he believes in a balanced rosters. They can hire within, and the Men's distance coaching assistant coach job would be a coveted position.

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They already have their guy on staff. Should Duke be getting sprint relays to the NCAA Championships? probably not, but they do. their combined eventers do VERY well. They have a guy that is a student of the sport, a former professional athlete that understands work ethic and teamwork. He has head coaching experience, and he believes in a balanced rosters. They can hire within, and the Men's distance coaching assistant coach job would be a coveted position.

They will probably promote one of the associate head coaches, but that will be a mistake. They are both great coaches but Duke should focus on distance if they have limited resources.

Look at what Syracuse has accomplished. Duke is a better school in a MUCH better location with better places to train. They should be a team that qualifies for NCAAs in XC every year - both women and men.

A beautiful campus? You enjoy that hideous gothic architecture? And in the middle of Durham no less.

Typically the usual suspects names would come up and the dominoes would fall. However, with the state of things, the current staff will remain with some shuffling of titles and volunteers getting promoted.

Bump

Mike Johnson at Western Oregon is retiring at the end of this school year. Saw it on WOU’s Twitter.

WOU already announced someone on staff is going to be taking over the HC position. It was in the press release.

They would still need to add a distance coach though right? That's a fairly appealing position given their recent success

Octavious Gillespie-Bennett, currently the associate head coach at WOU will be the new head coach...https://wouwolves.com/news/2020/4/21/longtime-wou-cross-country-track-and-field-head-coach-mike-johnson-to-retire.aspx

Anyone have any insight on the Robert Morris, Northern Georgia, or the Claremont McKenna openings? Any front runners or have interviews began yet?

I would not use Syracuse as a model for Duke to follow. Their men and women combined for 12 points at the Indoor ACC Championships this year.

North Georgia had phone interviews last week. Trying to move quick after that.

Lots of older coaches are calling it a career right now, and it’s spanning across all NCAA sports. Retirements happen every year, but it seems like a number of these coaches could have gone further. Are AD’s kicking people out the door to save money with interims until normal life resumes? Will sports be on pause until a vaccine is produced?

Mathew McGee is no longer listed on the Texas staff

Give Norm a break.

He comes into a program that has been a bottom feeder forever. He did the best anyone could considering what he had to work with.

No genetically superior athlete ever went (or ever will) go to Duke.

You make it sound like Duke was on the same playing field as an LSU or Texas A&M.

I will wager the next coach at Duke won't even hold a candle to what Norm has done.

Why don't you track the progress on the athletes he has graduated and compared them to athletes who have graduated from Florida State and see how each is doing today.

Do you think you can do a better job? What would you do at Duke differently?