How has Steve Gulley at Tulsa not been mentioned yet?
'Cause the Tulsa program has fallen apart is why. Three female assistants in as many years, the speed coach was let go and is now a student intern and a dozen or so athletes left via the portal over the summer. And having family members (Taylor Gulley) on coaching staff is not a good look.
Can't count the female assistants as a negative/against him. Those were stepping stone positions at probably less than desirable pay. Entry level positions and that were parlayed into better positions. If anything that's a positive if they were there for a year and got hired somewhere bigger/for more money. As for actual measurable success, their XC programs (mainly on the men) have done a fantastic job for a "small" school like this post asks about. The women have done well at conference as well, just not as high as the men on the national level. Go look at the results for yourselves. Who cares who is on staff if they can coach?
Stony Brook U in NY gets very little funding and is always one of the top in their region. They are coached by Andy Ronan, a Ray Treacy disciple. Ronan gets as much out of his runners' talent as anyone in the country. The dude who said Stony Brook is a meat grinder doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm a HS coach in NY and know many of the kids who went there and they were very well coached. This year they did get get a top 20 NXN boy names Gilstrap. They've been drawing more and more deserved attention because of their resukts in XC and track.
Andy is a great coach but fun fact Annette Acuff the last 10 years has more NCAA qualifiers. Binghamton has to be in this discussion if we are talking poorly funded!
Bing Women win America East against a fully endowed program in Umass Lowell. Annette now has All Americans and team conference champs on both gender.
Also shoutout to the Vermont Women. 0.9 scholarships in women's track and they also beat Lowell. What a day
'Cause the Tulsa program has fallen apart is why. Three female assistants in as many years, the speed coach was let go and is now a student intern and a dozen or so athletes left via the portal over the summer. And having family members (Taylor Gulley) on coaching staff is not a good look.
Can't count the female assistants as a negative/against him. Those were stepping stone positions at probably less than desirable pay. Entry level positions and that were parlayed into better positions. If anything that's a positive if they were there for a year and got hired somewhere bigger/for more money. As for actual measurable success, their XC programs (mainly on the men) have done a fantastic job for a "small" school like this post asks about. The women have done well at conference as well, just not as high as the men on the national level. Go look at the results for yourselves. Who cares who is on staff if they can coach?
Cool, now that XC is done for the year, how is that measurable success looking? It is okay, I will wait...
It seems we have shifted away from coaches and are now just looking at schools. So I'll do one better and throw out a whole conference. The Mid-American Conference. For a conference that's sucked dry by terrible football teams. Good individuals and teams seem to come from there.
True that, about MAC football bleeding the (men's) running programs dry: the MAC is mostly a joke. It's embarrassing how few of their schools have men's track and field programs; their 2023 men's conference championship meet was a pentagonal meet. I'm not sure how many good teams really have come from there, as of late. When was the last time a men's MAC team qualified for the national X-C meet?
True, true, they do get a few good individuals every now and then though . . . Clayton Murphy, Anthony Camerieri, etc. Timothy Chesondin of Akron was the top MAC individual on Saturday at 36th place, not bad.
Maybe Akron will become that top school and represent the MAC on a higher level throughout the Great Lakes region and at nationals. I would like to see that.
This post was edited 11 minutes after it was posted.
Can't count the female assistants as a negative/against him. Those were stepping stone positions at probably less than desirable pay. Entry level positions and that were parlayed into better positions. If anything that's a positive if they were there for a year and got hired somewhere bigger/for more money. As for actual measurable success, their XC programs (mainly on the men) have done a fantastic job for a "small" school like this post asks about. The women have done well at conference as well, just not as high as the men on the national level. Go look at the results for yourselves. Who cares who is on staff if they can coach?
Cool, now that XC is done for the year, how is that measurable success looking? It is okay, I will wait...
It is looking like a 3rd place finish in the region behind two top 5 teams, which is pretty good considering the talent they lost. Why are you so pissed off at Tulsa? Did Taylor Gulley take a dump in your Cheerios?
He's doing a great job with that team but their top guy was a 9:08 guy in hs and they just recruited a 9:10 and another 4:10 guy. Been following the program for years and the most talented recruit before this in the last two decades is a 4:16 guy (Masters) and a 4:17 guy (Cullenberg). Maine has never been able to get quality recruits before so it makes a big difference when it consistently starts happening. If they carry this momentum and keep more in state star athletes we could see the first UMaine team to ever make it to nationals
A lot of coaches are on the smaller side. I'd be more interested in who the best HUGE coaches are! Like who is the best xcountry coach in D1 that weight at least 250 lbs?
It was a couple of years ago I interviewed, but Furman does not have it as good as tons of schools. 2500 students, costs almost $80,000, they're not allowed to combine with academic aid, and they only had 13 scholarships for both programs. Their operations budget though was incredible.
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