Best Women's Coaches on the West Coast??

response... wrote:

ncaaathlete wrote:

I'm a current D1 runner on the West Coast and went through this whole process, scouting out each coach, so here we go.

10:40 for a sophomore is good, but if she wants to look at the big dogs, sub 10:20 and 4:50 are what it will take. With her current marks she'll still have many open doors, though.

Stay away from the UC's. None of them are worth your, or her, time if she wants to be successful in the long term. Cal is great at recruiting, gets lots of kids to go on visits there, but won't produce a successful runner in the end. I looked into it and personally did not feel like the program was designed with the kids best interests in mind. UCLA is a dream school in terms of weather, location, academics, but also won't do her any favors with running. Coaching has changed a lot, lots of girls with bone injuries, and not enough soft surface to run on around campus. None of the other UC's have well-established programs and I wouldn't bother considering them at all. Don't bother with Cal Poly. It's a fine program, but I don't think it's the place to go-- coaches don't seem all that careful with what they have athletes do (racing on injuries, big jumps in mileage....)

Stanford coaches are great, team is a bunch of really great kids, and obviously Palo Alto is a wonderful place to live, especially considering the weather. They really know what they're doing there, but your daughter will need to continue improving to be considered.

Washington is on the up with the Powells coming in. Already a well-established program, it's going to be a true hub now with these coaches. Cold and rainy, but that's very doable. Will also take significant improvement to get money to run there.

Oregon will always be great, but I don't think it'll be the same now. Helen clearly knows how to develop athletes as she had lots of success with her women at USF. To me, she felt too involved with all aspects of the athletes lives. Also had the girls do pretty significant volume and didn't feel very flexible. Always worth looking into, but wasn't the coaching fit for me.

Mark Wetmore is a genius and Boulder is a great place. Need to be able to handle significant volume and be a tough kid though. But if that's all true, she could flourish there. NAU is similar, but a notch "slower" on the women's side, but Mike Smith is a great person and coach and would really look out for her. Awesome group of girls, easier academically too.

Portland has had some good success on the Women's side.. athletes that can handle high volume do well there. Solof is a very nice guy.

Basically: tier one schools, in my opinion, with best coaches: Colorado, Washington, Stanford.

Tier two: NAU, Portland, maybe Utah.

This is certainly an interesting and articulate post filled with many opinions.

From this post, one can can conclude that there are only 3 to 6 schools in the west worth looking at (seems odd). One can also conclude that there is not one UC school available for any student athlete who wants to have "long term" success.... yes, not one. Additionally you can conclude that bone injuries occur at UCLA because there "are not enough soft surfaces" to run on... and you can conclude this even though there is zero proof that running on 'hard surfaces" causes injuries. The post also concludes that you shouldn't "bother" with Cal Poly SLO because somehow he/she knows the coaches aren't 'careful'.

There are several other interesting conclusions in the post that this "ncaa athlete" determined during his/her 5 official visits which need not be mentioned due to time constraints. It is interesting, though, that all of this extensive information can be determined by a high school senior simply going through the recruiting process ... it's also interesting to note that this person can determine if someone is a good/bad coach or a program is good/bad never having been coached by that coach or never having been in that program. Very strong opinions for sure but not all entirely good opinions. Ultimately there appears to be some kind of an agenda in the post... not quite sure what that might be.

In any case, the truth is there are many good coaches and programs out there for your daughter to select from. She should go where the best fit is for her academically and athletically. Btw, most of the programs which are "good" are good because of the ability to recruit talent. That doesn't mean a coach isn't good because he/she gets talented athletes it just means it's easier to be successful with a boat load of talented runners than it is without that boat load.

Truth Speaker wrote:

response... wrote:

This is certainly an interesting and articulate post filled with many opinions.

From this post, one can can conclude that there are only 3 to 6 schools in the west worth looking at (seems odd). One can also conclude that there is not one UC school available for any student athlete who wants to have "long term" success.... yes, not one. Additionally you can conclude that bone injuries occur at UCLA because there "are not enough soft surfaces" to run on... and you can conclude this even though there is zero proof that running on 'hard surfaces" causes injuries. The post also concludes that you shouldn't "bother" with Cal Poly SLO because somehow he/she knows the coaches aren't 'careful'.

There are several other interesting conclusions in the post that this "ncaa athlete" determined during his/her 5 official visits which need not be mentioned due to time constraints. It is interesting, though, that all of this extensive information can be determined by a high school senior simply going through the recruiting process ... it's also interesting to note that this person can determine if someone is a good/bad coach or a program is good/bad never having been coached by that coach or never having been in that program. Very strong opinions for sure but not all entirely good opinions. Ultimately there appears to be some kind of an agenda in the post... not quite sure what that might be.

In any case, the truth is there are many good coaches and programs out there for your daughter to select from. She should go where the best fit is for her academically and athletically. Btw, most of the programs which are "good" are good because of the ability to recruit talent. That doesn't mean a coach isn't good because he/she gets talented athletes it just means it's easier to be successful with a boat load of talented runners than it is without that boat load.

I’m sure a lot of the poster’s opinions come not just from her visits, but likely from subsequent observations and discussions. Certainly when I competed in the Pac 10 as it was then known, after a few years, you saw/heard a lot of info about the other coaches/programs. Not saying it was all 100% accurate, but the word gets out. People transfer, others have friends who compete at the other schools, sometimes you get to know some of the people you compete against. Especially in this day and age, with all the ways kids have of communicating electronically, there are no secrets. The only negative I see to her post is it assumes that someone is going to go to the best program their times will allow them to, but this is often the reality. If you are truly an elite runner, there are indeed only a handful of programs worthy of consideration in the region.

My only comment about that is, for the vast majority of runners, you are better off going someplace where you can get a great degree in what you want to spend doing in the 40 years after college. UW and Stanford offer that, but so do the better UC schools whose running programs aren’t as stellar. Unless you are a high school superstar, the odds are that you aren’t going to even score at Pac 12s, much less NCAAs. At the end of your 4-5 years, a degree from Berkeley or UCLA is far more valuable than having been a squad member on a national championship team at a place like Oregon, for example.