Bernard Lagat + Priscilla Schultz = The Arizona Nightmare

This guy gets it. What does scholarshiping another 9:10/4:15 guy or 4:50/10:30 woman get them? Pissing money down the drain if they’re not planning on spending a lot on a lot of those caliber athletes to be mediocre in XC…which they clearly don’t care about. It’ll be at least 3-4 years minimum before that caliber of kid is scoring on the track if ever. Best likely role that kid is going to play is as a depth kid on a XC team…which they can get for free without trying too hard (or at least not too far off that caliber for free). So it actually makes a ton of sense for them to either only give big money to a 4:0-low or 4:3x 1600 kid or nothing at all since you get zero points for having a bunch of 3:4x-mid/4:2x-low 1500 kids on your team. What comes off as unrealistic distance recruiting standards to the average high school kid and their dad is actually a strategic decision that many of the most successful track and field coaches have made at the speed and power schools that are actually placing highly at NCAA Championships. Then, when they get a good chance to see whether that 4:20/5:05 walk on is actually going to be scoring on the track or not in 4 years and they likely decide “not,” (whether they are the 10th or 15th kid on the XC team) now that kid is just going to be dead weight. Another mouth to feed & ultimately cause problems when they feel entitled to more…not realizing they’re actually entitled to less because they are NEVER going to be competitive at that level. Now, beyond this I have no idea how good or bad of a coach Kip is, but it’s not great for team morale when they realize they’re just sport sponsorship or Title IX fodder. But that decision was made above Bernard’s pay grade…probably above Fred’s.

Exactly. Both @BS and @ Getter understand the issue.

It's the NCAA scholarship structure that creates this issue... XC being a subset of track... forces universities to decide between the two sports... some schools are able to be strong in both but most have to choose between the two.

Many distance people don't understand that.

Plus the fact that many people who post here just like to trash coaches & athletes to make themselves feel better.

Don't forget the American-born issue.

not sure if anyone had already said this but michael urbanski has a somewhat active account

Lagat might be one of the worst coaches in the NCAA. I’m dead serious. He can’t get athletes to stay. They can’t even get a full team. I blame the director for keeping this man in a head cross country job position. He can’t coaching if his life depended on it.

Looking through a few weeks of training, it looks like their team only does 2 different routes from campus??? That would be miserable. It looks like they have other routes available (Downtown, The Loop, Arroyo Chico, El Paso & SWern) which are <2 miles from campus and well maintained. Why don't they run anywhere else?

Look at the roster of the current Arizona men's and women's teams! I honestly don't know if Lagat/Schultz can coach up what few runners they have on their roster, but I will bet that my 58-59 foot men's shot putter or 24-foot long jumper who walks on has a better chance of scoring in the Pac-12/Big 12 than a 4:10/9:15 walk on distance runner.

I don't see you guys bashing USC for not recruiting distance runners. This is just an effect of the collegiate system with 12.6/18 scholarships. You gotta pick your battles, and Lagat/Schultz's boss chooses to go with power/speed with the resources that they have.

Lagat can’t coach worth of sh!t. It’s pathetic and embarrassing.

Lagat and Shultz are the bottom of the barrel. The athletes leave them and for obvious reasons. I’m not kidding those two could be the worst P5 coaches in college running.

The Director should be fired for keeping them

Harvey is way too comfortable being in his position. Arizona’s whole coaching staff has got to go before that program sees any real results. Time to clear house and start from scratch

I hate Cade Russo he’s rolled

i love cade russo hes hot

As an alumni of this team I can confirm all the complaints about the coaching staff are 100% true. to give your all to a team and be thrown to the curb and treated like you are talentless with no potential despite overcoming the lack of experience and training from the coaches is truly one of the worst feelings. it really skews your perception of self-worth

I love cade russo hes very hot

I wish for cade russo to bear by children

Will be interesting to see how the 17/45 roster spots for XC/Track plays out at Arizona next season and how the Big 12 schools react. Will the Big 12 follow the SEC's lead in supposedly making the track and cross country rosters smaller than the NCAA numbers?

It's a fact that only Arizona puts on good meets, after the debacle at Arizona State with the hockey arena basically making their track complex a very expensive practice facility. Grand Canyon could potentially put on some good meets.

The Lagat/Schultz dynamic makes you wonder if Arizona is really serious about the distance portion of the T&F program. It's a bummer for the athletes that Ryan Ray got out of Arizona when he did.

Met him once at a dinner in Eugene. Incredibly nice guy

Lagat can’t coach and they just need to get a real coach for cross country and UofA will be fine