2025 College Track & Field Open Coaching Positions Discussion

A duo indeed. Zoom interview with the team 2 nights ago.

I assume this is the Dunbars heading to UK then?

I’m open to the idea of Wallace poaching JUCO Kenyan WOMEN’S distance runners as early as…today. Rudolph recruited a Missouri Valley Conference footprint for most of her tenure and SURPRISE! ISU ended up with a Missouri Valley caliber cross country roster. The ISU women’s distance recruiting strategy needs to be pretty much identical to the men’s. The top American high school girls distance runners aren’t going to come to Ames until it’s a top 10 women’s cross country program again and that is only going to happen with internationals, which the staff already knows how to coach. When ISU signed Cailie Logue & Amanda Vestri ISU was two years removed from finishing 2nd at NCAA Cross Country. The likes of them aren’t coming again until we clearly give them a reason to choose ISU over more glamorous options. Paityn Noe gew up 10 minutes from Ames.

Is Northern Colorado looking for a distance coach?

I see their distance coach has been reassigned to compliance. What's going on there? Are they shutting down the distance program? Or are they going all in on sprints/hurdles/jumps?

@MattHatter - don't you know this part of the country well? What's going on?

They need to clean house. They can win at ISU they need the right people to do it

Sudbury is a good coach and a good guy - very smart. He was a great recruiter as an assistant - basically won Martin Smith over to coaching Kenyan athletes. His only weakness in my mind is the same weakness Smith had - a strong desire to defer and have as little to do as possible on the women’s distance side - mainly because it’s high risk, mostly thankless, and potentially perilous to a male coach’s career. The best thing that could happen to him is for Jamie Pollard to walk into his office and say, “how about we de-emphasize women’s cross country?” Kurtis Brondyke is doing a great job as a coach & recruiter right now and, if they get a throws coach to go along with him, ISU could build a nice, balanced women’s program - like Martin Smith had at Oklahoma. Absent Pollard doing that, though, Sudbury has to be involved with women’s distance, primarily with veto power over scholarship offers to women who are 50/50 propositions at best. When ISU women’s cross country is bad it just kills their track team as well, and it can’t be fixed overnight.

Not surprised at her comment and that follows her M.O. she was demoted to not writing the woman’s training and then this summer she was told she wasn’t going to be coming back.

You have Maelle Porcher who has been running faster than Logue and Vestri and somehow you still can't build a team around her?

Jacksonville State just hired their new assistant.

Maelle is French and quasi-married. Probably isn’t palling around with the girls much. She is probably also done if it’s true that Mechaal is in the portal. She’s been great to have and Wallace did a nice job keeping her on track this year. She has a beautiful stride. She’s been great to watch for 2 years.

when is central michigan making their hire? they have had the position open for over a month.

What about middle tennessee as well? They have had an opening for a month now

Do Mid majors usually take this long to pick someone?

Mechaal is in the portal. Kind of shocked honestly that he would enter given the success he has had. I know track season was very up and down with him, especially at indoor/outdoor nats

Is he planning to go d2? Hes 27 years old I don’t know how he would still have d1 eligibility

The portal is closed and I am certain if Porcher were leaving stride report or some other entity would have reported that by now.

The whole team should hit the portal from Iowa State… it’s Ames

How does Stride Report get portal access?

Some no name assistant definitely shares it with them. Probably a D3 coach who is jealous of not being D1

Love how Iowa state posts 2 jobs and instead of anyone talking about who could be good fits or asking about the jobs they just bash the current coaching staff.

Didn’t that staff just finish runner up in cross on the men’s side. How many all Americans? Nah f*ck them for being competitive.

The women had a gap year from qualifying and are apparently in turmoil with a new coach and basically everyone pred plus porcher ran a hell of a race at outdoor ncaas but like hey they should all be fired apparently is it the letsrun vibe