2025 California T&F Thread

Yes I know they do. It's pretty obvious by how much Jesuit glazing happens in here. So either you are trying to help them recruit this kid or just fanning the flames to irritate both teams and cause drama.

Unfortunately Ferris is a terrible coach also. Double whammy for UCLA

An interesting perspective about Ferris from UCLA being labeled as a "get to the line coach." It seems like there's a consensus that he may not have the strongest coaching skills, relying more on the natural talent of the runners rather than focusing on any development. He had a bad go at Wake Forest that ended in big drama too. That’s an entire different subject that I’m not sure you want to get in at this stage.

You should be damn thankful right now that your daughter didn't end up at UCLA if she cares about running well. The UCLA distance coach at the conference this weekend was nothing short of a disaster. Results were one of the worst I've seen. All in all, she dodged a bullet by not going there. Hope she landed in a good place with a SEC school. Honestly you would get developed better at almost any California Juco

Did you see the start of the 1600M? Wait til this replay gets posted. All eyes were on the top 2 seeds who were teammates. Combe, the defending CIF champ and Blade, one of the best runners in So Cal history. Blade made a very aggressive move from the first step, immediately cutting off her teammate who had to jump back and lost a few steps to avoid falling. Dirty move to make on an opponent, let alone a teammate. Looks like it fired Combe up though! Would love to hear her comments on it.

Alder and Hedengren are also teammates who started next to each other and I’ve never seen one of them cut the other one off. Same with Kitchen and Tostensen, Holly Barker and Evangeline Williams or the Mountain Vista girls.

Not trying to bash Blade, mods, just a surprising observation.

I’ve heard 2 other very similar stories about elite, top girls not getting money from UCLA. They did get Chloe Elbaz, though. Not sure if she got money, but she’d get a full ride to many competitive track schools.
The only kid I’ve heard get financial offer was So Cal’s top boy, who chose Stanford instead. You can figure out who that is.

UCLA distance is non existent. You need to go to Stanford or out of California to run fast for any distance runner

As a former Bruin it’s embarrassing to watch this Distance crew.

Poly out for a lane violation on the 3rd leg. As per usual, it's more about who actually gets to the start line, than who is the fastest.

This thread is brigaded to high sh*t, read any of the discussion and look the upvotes/downvotes around Jesuit and it is obvious

I coach a girl, top level 400 runner in California. She took a visit to UCLA (they were mostly interested in her 800, which is also elite-level.) Wasn't particularly impressed by the program or coaches.

California Juco system is extremely underrated. Many great athletes turn it down and go to more expensive inferior schools with inferior athletic programs because they are quite honestly, too proud to go to a junior college. Some of the best coaches I know work at that level. Also, if you are a decently talented girl you can wreck havoc in the CCCAA. Take a look at the winning times for the state meet a few days ago. Not exactly crazy stuff, but it will boost your track resume tremendously in the eyes of many coaches.

Only tangentially related to UCLA, but UCSB has had an extraordinary resurgence under their new head coach, especially in the sprints. They did astonishingly well at big west last weekend for a program that was essentially in the dirt quite recently. A top-10 distance runner in California recently turned down a full ride to UCSB for another, far inferior California college program. Wonder how he is feeling after seeing conference results - assuming he even cares about that.

Are we talking about Aydon Stefanopolous? Or is there another Cali guy who recently committed? I’m still waiting to hear where JR Lesher is heading to

Jordin Liberman committed to UCSB, and is looking to be one of the top 1600 runners going into the masters and state meet

UCSB is a black whole to run fast

He was definitely talking about Aydon. Aydon visited Santa Barbara many times according to his Strava.