Newbury Park - is it the coach or the kids?

Summary: The OP post was a bad question; it's likely both (or it could be neither, logically speaking). More importantly, if it is both, then what is the percentage of coaching and kids' talent? Even more importantly, as with most complex situations, there are probably multiple factors at play: feeder programs, wealth of the families, size of the school, support of parents, support of the school, etc. And, of course, time will help sort out the relative strengths of those individual variables.

That said, congratulations to NP! Very fun to watch an all-time great HS boys team!

Ghost of Ward Cleaver wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

I've read that if there is a physiological benefit, it's gone within 2 weeks of returning to sea level. And it's only a month anyway.

That was a long time ago. Almost 2,000? We were in the large-school division.

What's gone in two weeks?

You really don't think there was ever a potential 9:00 3200m runner in your school. Do you recall your school records for 800, 1600, and 3200?

Any advantage gained from training at altitude. HS distance runners in Colorado grow up at altitude and the entire state has never produced a single runner as fast as the top 3 NP runners and Nico.

My HS has good demographics for distance running and the school records are fast. It was probably around 1970 that there began to be an interest in distance running and during that 50 years there have been 4 guys under 9:00 with the school record being 8:49 for the the 2-mile. The distance coach there for the last 30 years has a great reputation in the Sac area but the fastest runner in the school's history would be dropped by the NP guys. Walt Lange is legendary in the area and he's never had a 2-mile/XC runner as fast as the NP guys during his 50 years. They were a powerhouse when I was in HS with about 5 guys between 9:05 and 9:20. I don't think he's ever had 2 guys run sub-9:00 during the same year besides the Mastalirs.

Maybe Soccer is more popular than XC but it's nothing compared to baseball, football and basketball. A 7th grader is going to be told by the coach he has the potential to receive a scholarship and he's going to blow it off to play soccer? The kid has just beaten the next fastest one by 30 seconds and he's going to choose to be possibly be an average soccer player?

There's nothing unusual about distance running compared to other sports. The super talented kids are going to be self-motivated and all the coach has to do is give them the workouts. There's a wide range of effective workouts and it's not that difficult. The coach doesn't have to anything differently if he's fortunate enough to have several great runners instead of just one. Some of you seem to believe that HS distance runners are a bunch of flakes that will quit if they're not coddled.

Is it both?

According to the Milesplit database, Newbury’s 2019 freshman class would be almost a minute and a half faster per runner than the fastest 2021 freshman class in CA. Their 2021 class would barely crack the top 100. If the coach was a major factor, why can’t he get the 2021 class more competitive?

They aren’t a bunch of flakes but they need direction and everyone want to give them that in their lives. The better they get the worse that is. It takes a confident individual to be a coach at this caliber so the kids don’t get distracted.

I think more people here believe that somehow these kids know how to train properly just because they are fast. This is not at all true, especially for high school kids.

If Shawn has a state championship team in 2023 without getting any additional transfers (95% of there boys and girls teams are transfers at this point), then I will be impressed. If not, it was the kids that are the GOATS, and the coach got lucky.

NP’s actual team with just kids that are supposed to go to that school has 17 min boys in their top 7. This is a recruited, youth running program built, all-star team.

He has done well with top talent and should consider coaching in college. I project he will be on the move after the next cross season.

Sounds like we have someone who should volunteer to start coaching!

calicoach18 wrote:

If Shawn has a state championship team in 2023 without getting any additional transfers (95% of there boys and girls teams are transfers at this point), then I will be impressed. If not, it was the kids that are the GOATS, and the coach got lucky.

NP’s actual team with just kids that are supposed to go to that school has 17 min boys in their top 7. This is a recruited, youth running program built, all-star team.

He has done well with top talent and should consider coaching in college. I project he will be on the move after the next cross season.

How will he not get any additional transfers? If you are in the area and want to be a good distance runner, why not jump ship?

Did you compete in distance running in HS? If you had NP level talent would you need anymore direction than a kid in any other sport? My HS coach wasn't particularly personable but if the workout was 8 × 880 or he wanted us to go for an 8-mile run, it never occurred to me not do so.

I've never seen an answer to my question as to what the difference is between coaching 4 great runners instead of just one.

calicoach18 wrote:

If Shawn has a state championship team in 2023 without getting any additional transfers (95% of there boys and girls teams are transfers at this point), then I will be impressed. If not, it was the kids that are the GOATS, and the coach got lucky.

NP’s actual team with just kids that are supposed to go to that school has 17 min boys in their top 7. This is a recruited, youth running program built, all-star team.

He has done well with top talent and should consider coaching in college. I project he will be on the move after the next cross season.

The boys are the GOAT! The coach has ridden their coat tails. Look at what happened to their girls team. They have a stacked roster, full of big time transfers and they got worse as the season went on.

They beat Buchanan by 12 points and had a faster team time at Woodbridge, then got whipped at state with Buchanan even having a couple of their top 5 having serious issues, then got demolished at RunningLane by 166 points and almost 20 seconds per runner. Newbury's team wasn't missing any contributors. Anyone with reasonable running knowledge would attribute that to coaching. He proclaimed multiple times they were shooting for the podium at RunningLane and ended up 9th.

Easier to coach 4.

Athletes make coaches look good. (at every level).

The Newbury Park girls were not even ranked with that team in the beginning on the season. They were not even. listed in the top 10 in the state. What they have done was extremely impressive this season. How many teams have both boys and girls in the top 10 in the country ? Not many at all. They are a top girls and guys program and thats hard to do.

The Newbury Park coach is one of the best coaches in the country at any level ( HS, College, Pro). Brosnan and other winning coaches will always have a target on their back from all the jealous coaches who can't do anything close to what he or she are doing.

You if they win it's not the coach. If they don't win then it's the coaches fault. Great logic haha

Los Ang -1984 wrote:

Bear Down wrote:

The boys are the GOAT! The coach has ridden their coat tails. Look at what happened to their girls team. They have a stacked roster, full of big time transfers and they got worse as the season went on.

They beat Buchanan by 12 points and had a faster team time at Woodbridge, then got whipped at state with Buchanan even having a couple of their top 5 having serious issues, then got demolished at RunningLane by 166 points and almost 20 seconds per runner. Newbury's team wasn't missing any contributors. Anyone with reasonable running knowledge would attribute that to coaching. He proclaimed multiple times they were shooting for the podium at RunningLane and ended up 9th.

You if they win it's not the coach. If they don't win then it's the coaches fault. Great logic haha

That's how it works in MLB. The manager of a WS winning team is a genius. Since the players can't be fired, the coach will be the one that gets the boot after a bad year. Joe Torre was fired by both the Mets and Braves but became a HOFer after managing the Yankees.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Los Ang -1984 wrote:

You if they win it's not the coach. If they don't win then it's the coaches fault. Great logic haha

That's how it works in MLB. The manager of a WS winning team is a genius. Since the players can't be fired, the coach will be the one that gets the boot after a bad year. Joe Torre was fired by both the Mets and Braves but became a HOFer after managing the Yankees.

Good thing Newbury Park keeps winning and seems to always be on top.

Most of the current crop of upper classmen were running/racing in middle school and some even before that. Nico Young has gone on record as saying he was running from age 6. I'd venture a guess that the 21 and 22 minute guys from the 2021 freshman class did not follow that path. My point is this is not an apples-to-apples comparison as the 2019 class were also seasoned runners (by 3 or more years) by freshman year effectively making them like juniors or seniors.

CU Buff wrote:

Most of the current crop of upper classmen were running/racing in middle school and some even before that. Nico Young has gone on record as saying he was running from age 6. I'd venture a guess that the 21 and 22 minute guys from the 2021 freshman class did not follow that path. My point is this is not an apples-to-apples comparison as the 2019 class were also seasoned runners (by 3 or more years) by freshman year effectively making them like juniors or seniors.

That’s the point. The current group of kids are studs (apples) and the rest of the world, like the 2021 freshman class are normal (oranges). It’s not the coach. Apples make the coach’s look good, oranges make the coach look like everyone else.

Take a look at the records/results page:

http://www.nptrackclub.org/

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Their feeder program is their youth track club.

http://www.nptrackclub.org/Page.asp?n=102799&org=nptrackclub.org

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Their Sophomore Dev Joshi, for instance, he ran some good times in the "Midget Boys" division but nothing out of this world yet still ran 14:59 5k as a sophomore. Coaching?

I am curious too, CIF has made it pretty easy to transfer. Also curious about the ages of the top runners. Time will tell how good the coach is. The top programs seem to be good for decades, Mira Costa, Saugus, Palos Verdes, San Luis Obispo, West Torrance come to mind in CIF. York, Fayetteville Manlius nationally and maybe in the past.