What F-M coach Bill Aris knows that no one else knows...

What a biased unfair, ridiculous post...you must be Doug Soles.

He times their menstrual cycles well. im not kidding.

An example of how having junior high kids helps- White has run with him for 2 years now - she is only a freshman but has had 4 track seasons and 2 summers. They say she was a 400/800 runner last year but as a 7th grader she made states in steeple chase, so she was a good distance runner. She didn't make varsity last year. 2 years of mileage got her ready to be good in 9th grade. But by junior year she will have had 4 years of 80 mile weeks. Not sure where you go from there. This is just an example for people to understand the advantage fm has with junior high kids.

New York's modified rule explains a lot here. I think it's the reason FM succeeds; why the girls do better than the boys; and why few at FM do much after they leave.

The best analogy to FM is high school running in Japan. Kids run uber-high weekly mileage , turn in times that would shock Americans and by 20 have disappeared. When the high school coach can get two more years with the kids it's a huge advantage but takes off 2 or more years off the end of their careers . You find very few runners who are at the top of their game as seniors in college who were elite runners in 7th grade .

Since girls physically can compete at elite levels younger than boys, the modified rule benefits the girls a lot more. Look at the individual qualifiers at NXN . For the boys, there were 4 sophomores and everyone else were juniors and seniors . The girls qualifiers had 8 sophomores and 7 freshman and middle schoolers.

That said, you as a coach have to convince a group of kids to basically give up everything but train year round for 6 years. There aren't many places that a coach could sell that. FM is one of the few where you can.

Of course he has nothing to do with their success beyond high school. He's not their coach anymore. I'm willing to bet they'd get better and better if Aris stayed with them post high school. The culture and lifestyle of college is much different than what it is and what they're used to at FM. Aris does his job and get out of them what most coaches couldn't. He takes runners who might not be anything with another coach and makes them great.

I've been blessed to have coached some very talented athletes that are SUPPOSED to win. It is always the same reaction... Relief.

It never the excitement of the first win. It's always relief you didn't mess up.

Hounddogharrier wrote:

...as a coach have to convince a group of kids to basically give up everything but train year round for 6 years. There aren't many places that a coach could sell that.

Have you heard of club soccer? Or club volleyball, AAU basketball, cross fit, high school football... Of course there's these kind of people in running too.

CWRP wrote:

Hounddogharrier wrote:

...as a coach have to convince a group of kids to basically give up everything but train year round for 6 years. There aren't many places that a coach could sell that.

Have you heard of club soccer? Or club volleyball, AAU basketball, cross fit, high school football... Of course there's these kind of people in running too.

Well, who else have you got running 85 miles a week running year round in the USA? Saratoga maybe, but nobody else comes to mind. Let's hear who it is.

Nice to see the Great Oaks coach agrees with me. Great minds think alike ! 🏃🏼‍♀️🏃🏼‍♀️🏃🏼‍♀️

Hounddogharrier wrote:

Well, who else have you got running 85 miles a week running year round in the USA? Saratoga maybe, but nobody else comes to mind. Let's hear who it is.

How bout Great Oak?

Couldn't agree more. As a high school coach it's really hard to convince my assistant coaches of this mindset.

baby blue. wrote:

Hounddogharrier wrote:

Well, who else have you got running 85 miles a week running year round in the USA? Saratoga maybe, but nobody else comes to mind. Let's hear who it is.

How bout Great Oak?

Do any of you have any hard evidence beyond rumor about the exact mileage of each of these teams? Also, why would all runners on the team do the same arbitrary mileage regardless of experience, ability, etc.

And how many of those girls come out of states where kids don't run with HS teams in middle school? I have heard way too many stories of girls going out for XC freshman year of HS and being FL finalists as sophomores.

Obviously more training always helps but it is unclear by how much.

Coach wrote:

Rojo no way do most college coaches recruit "talent not time." I asked a few coaches at seminars if they'd take the 4:12 miler who ran 70 miles a week and did stuff like 10x400 in 62 or the 4:20 miler who ran 30 miles a week and never ran more than 8x400 in 65. They wouldn't answer that question. No way do they take a chance on potential talent.

You misunderstood what I was trying to say.

It reminds me of a guy criticizing the coach at Princeton about 15 years ago, "He always takes the Foot Locker finalist instead of the 9:30 kid with potential."

I laughed and said, "Well I don't have that problem at Cornell but it would be hard to turn that down."

The 9:30 kid with potential or the 4:20 guy in your case might be better but we don't know it.

But if I"m lookin at a 9:15 guy from a power program or a 9:20 guy who barely runs, I'm going with the 9:20. 4:12 and 4:20 is miles apart.

No. Of course not. You'd take the 4:12 talent.

But if that 4:20 kid wants to walk on. You should realize he might be a big talent as he's barely run.

Try some FACTS wrote:

baby blue. wrote:

How bout Great Oak?

Do any of you have any hard evidence beyond rumor about the exact mileage of each of these teams? Also, why would all runners on the team do the same arbitrary mileage regardless of experience, ability, etc.

Likely not, since the narrative is that FM runners do a ton of mileage, so they burn out after high school.

The truth is that FM rarely has world beaters, but they almost always have 5 very good runners. Some go on to have decent collegiate careers, others move on to more academic goals, and I'm sure some do get burnt out either physically or mentally. However they aren't running mega mileage, and they are not all running the same mileage. Aris develops individual training plans for each runner depending on their abilities. I think only a few runners have really done a ton of mileage (Tommy Gruenewald was one of them).

spokanexc wrote:

And if you look at NXN Qualifiers in the Midwest, its schools from the north suburbs of Chicago, also very wealthy. Same with California schools in the South Bay, like Dana Hills.

Check your geography. Naperville (Neuqua Valley), Elmhurst (York), and Downers Grove (if we're talking this year) are all in the western suburbs; none of them are geographically north of Chicago.

Still fairly wealthy areas, especially Naperville, but not the northern suburbs as you state above.

Kentucky once gave a scholarship to a 4:20/9:15 guy with no other offers named Mark Nenow.

the unicorn wrote:

Kentucky once gave a scholarship to a 4:20/9:15 guy with no other offers named Mark Nenow.

So don't give up on all the kids who start late, I guess? Though you might wonder how many 4:20 guys you have to recruit before you get a Nenow...

Every couple of year this site has a Bill Aris thread.

Comments generally range from he's a genius, a saint, to he's nothing special to he's a monster that kills runners future.

How many other high school coaches can generate this much activity on this message board?

That right there says a lot.