2012 Coaching Openings

Staff wrote:

who will be names to the Kentucky Staff? and the UNC Staff? any news on who will take over at Illinois, Ohio State and East Tennessee State?

Edrick's 2012-2013 Staff (Mark it down!)

1 Million dollar salary pool- Head Coaches need only apply

Vin Lananna- Associate Head Coach/ Distance

Pat Henry- Men's Sprints

Carol Smith- Women's Sprints

Cliff Rovelto- Vertical Jumps/Combined Events

Mike Maynard- Throws

Condoleezza Rice- Operations Director (Stanford Alum)

Volunteer Coaches

2012 USA Summer Olympic Team

+ Plus anyone willing to donate 15k per year

So who is going to replace floreal at Stanford?

Pray for the Pickens family and folks at Oklahoma coaches and student athletes. Skip passed recently. It will be a tough year with cross around the corner and just in general.

Gary put up a great wall of recruiting Ohio distance runners. There are so many, he couldn't make scholarship always work (especially top kid year in and year out).

He now is fully-funded for distance runners only, professionals being supported, assistants that are just distance coaches, no indoor track season, great weather, very beautiful campus, and high academics.

I think they'll be very good (probably better than being at OSU because he doesn't have to try to put together a full track team too).

Concerns would be how small the school is, it is super expensive, you have to live on campus unil your junior year, and the academics are strenuous.

Vig to Stanford would be awesome!

in other news, Furman baseball decided it would field a team of left handed pitchers only, their football team has decided to go all offensive linemen, basketball has decided to put all their scholarships into point guards.

yes that is good for the sport!

Nicely put!!!

You're comparing apples to oranges. You cannot play those other games without having all of the positions. But, there is no requirement in track and field to have all of the events. I'd rather see this than having a small staff trying to coach events they know nothing about. Focusing your investment is a smart use of the funds and I'd rather see that then programs being cut as if more often the case in D1.

Coaches News Network wrote:

You're comparing apples to oranges. You cannot play those other games without having all of the positions. But, there is no requirement in track and field to have all of the events. I'd rather see this than having a small staff trying to coach events they know nothing about. Focusing your investment is a smart use of the funds and I'd rather see that then programs being cut as if more often the case in D1.

Or maybe they could take the time to learn the sport and actually be professional. There are just so many lazy guys taking the easy way out...either that or they just want to indulge their little obsessive habit. COACH. THE. WHOLE. SPORT.

Who is to say you can not play the other sports without having all of the other positions. It is called having a bad team or crappy athletes in positions they are not made to be playing. Track and field is made up of 19 open events and 2 relay events. How can you make an intelligent argument to focus on 5 out of 21 events. Yes our sport is different, but all sports are different from one another (hence a different sport). The biggest difference in our sport is we have too many distance focused head coaches and not enough track focused head coaches. In what sport can you have success if you only focus on 23% of your sport??? The correct and only intelligent answer is NONE!!!There is a sport made up of only distance runners it is called cross country. So if you want to have a distance only program why would the administration want to keep a track program that will never have as much success at the National and especially at the Conference level as a complete track program. Do the math a sprint & field event program has 77% more opportunities to score points then your distance only program. It is simple math and logic people, please try using it sometime.Track and Field is made up of 21 events and it is bad for our sport when you have a distance only programs of 5 events. Track and Field is a sport as the name states where you have track athletes and you have field athletes. A good coach can coach any event/sport, you just have to put in the time and effort to learn the event or sport you want to coach. There are too many lazy coaches who do not want to put in that time and effort, I have a name for them its called BAD coaches.Go run some more miles because obviously you are not thinking clearly enough yet, or better yet you should stop running so many miles so you can start thinking like a Track and Field coach and not a distance runner!!!

Coaches News Network wrote:

You're comparing apples to oranges. You cannot play those other games without having all of the positions. But, there is no requirement in track and field to have all of the events. I'd rather see this than having a small staff trying to coach events they know nothing about. Focusing your investment is a smart use of the funds and I'd rather see that then programs being cut as if more often the case in D1.

So if you want to have a distance only program why would the administration want to keep a track program that will never have as much success at the National and especially at the Conference level as a complete track program. Do the math a sprint & field event program has 77% more opportunities to score points then your distance only program. It is simple math and logic people, please try using it sometime.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4367974&page=51#ixzz20KpOxygC

Though I completely agree with your points about the limitation of focusing on just distance, it's obviously (no surprise)about $. Administrators can have a distance head coach for cc/track and only pay out one head coaching salary whereas if it was a track and field person they might have to pay out someone else to be the head CC coach/distance assistant for track. At the very least in that scenario, the CC head/track assistant would definitely be in position of leverage to command, potentially, a head coaching salary.

It's the same reason administrators combine most programs-fewer head coaching salaries and assistants to work with both genders instead of one for each event groups or multiple event groups.

let's get back to the original topic. Who does kentucky and unc hire to fill they staff?

I was just typing pretty much the same thing

Seriously,

This is by far the dumbest comment I've read on here in a while. You show that you have no knowledge of coaching the sport. Coach the whole sport? You realize that's like saying you only need one coach for a football team. Why doesn't the head coach do all the work with the linemen, receivers, quarterbacks, runningbacks, special teams....

There is no elite coach in the country who is a phenomenal coach at more than one, MAYBE two event groups. This isn't high school. PROFESSIONAL coaches are specialized. They learn the ins-and-outs of their event. That's why they get paid for it and you don't.

There are always critics out there. Some programs gut distance and focus on another event area or event areas. We call them "sprint schools" or "jumps schools". For some reason the non-distance people on the forum don't complain about programs that focus on other events.

Every program is in a different situation. You can say a Furman should build a complete program. But how is Furman going to out recruit all the southern SEC, ACC, etc sprints and jumps powers?

So is Furman supposed to do that anyway and put out mediocre teams that might compete well at the conference level, just so they can say they cover all the events?

And what if a program only has one, two or three full time coaches? Do you think they are lazy if they don't feel they can properly coach all event areas, recruit all event areas, and do all the NCAA paperwork required? If you do, then you obviously have no experience coaching at the DI level, especially at a mid-major.

And if you coach at a school that has tougher academic standards...or maybe you just care about academic success, where do you find all those stellar academic sprinters and jumpers and hurdlers?

I don't know the academic standards at Furman, but its possible that very few sprinters, jumpers and hurdlers could even get into the school, even if the coaches wanted to get them there.

So, some schools focus on certain event areas. maybe some are lazy, but most are trying to deal with the realities of their situation, their academic standards, their recruiting base, their resources and to maximize their opportunity to succeed.

I highly doubt Furman could ever be a name at the DI level as a full balanced track program. Everything is stacked against them. But maybe they will be a major name as a distance power.

And maybe not, but I don't see how you have the right to say they are wrong, especially when you don't know what they have to deal with.

The system is set up so that each school can choose a different way of striving for success. If nothing else it's interesting.

You both are idiots and I hope I coach against you two.

1. (Seriously now) "COACH. THE. WHOLE. SPORT."

-D1 is not an equal playing field. Some teams can hardly pay for 2 full time coaches. If smaller schools want to specialize to be successful at the national level then there is nothing wrong with that.

2. (A True Track & Field Coach) "How can you make an intelligent argument to focus on 5 out of 21 events.

-Teams can sponsor more scholarships by sponsoring track and field along with cross country.

3. (Field guy)"Do the math a sprint & field event program has 77%"

-No shit, you must be a math major. But if you've ever noticed the national results, you can be a top twenty five program with one or two distance runners.

For all three of you; if every team had six full time coaches all being paid the same around the country, then I can see your point about a team being ridiculous for only concentrating on one area. But this isnt the case. Some small schools who invest everything into distances still can't provide the same experience that big schools do when they have a balance approach. It's all about resources.

I never said I agreed with what Furman is doing on a philosophical level, but I can see why they'd want to do it that way. Remember, they are the ones who are footing the bill for all of this so they must be encouraging this tact, or, at the very least, signing off on it. As another posted already stated, there are many programs who put nearly all their focus on sprints,hurdles, and jumps which cover the majority of the points in a meet. That's their prerogative.

If Robert does what I'm certain he can, he will provide very high quality opportunities for both collegiate and professional distance runners. That does not hurt the sport, it helps it. Other schools focus on sprints and jumps. Again, that helps the sport. It's not high school-no school is obligated to have a balanced program. Many mid majors use the premise that if they can't have a balanced team, they won't have ANY team. That being the case, I see this situation in a favorable light.

Back to Kentucky....

They've proved that they will shell out a good chunk of change for a Director/Head Coach. If they really want to be an elite program, they will have to have plenty of dough ready for the assistant coaches. TAMUs assistants make in the 75-85k range, so it remains to be seen who can be lured to Lexington and for how much $$.

OK. Point taken about the Furmans and University of Portlands of the world, but what about Oklahoma State. What he is doing there is NOT good for the sport, and indeed a mindset like that weakens everything from the NCAA & conference level to the lowest developmental level of the sport IN HIS OWN STATE by limiting opportunity in all event areas except distance! For crying out loud, even Oregon State is getting guys to nationals in non distance evants-AND THEY DON"T EVEN HAVE A MEN'S TRACK TEAM!!! It's not like there isn't sprint/jump/throw quality level talent walking around on campus/getting in. All you have to do is look at the football and basketball teams to see evidence of what he has access to. I'm sorry, but Okie State DOES have the ability to do more, but are choosing not to, that is laziness.

You hope you coach against me? Typical internet tough guy talk.

If you bothered to take notice, though 77% is accurate, it was not my quote.

Regarding noticing results at the national level, you make my arguement for me. That's exactly the point, you don't need a slew of distance runners to be successful as a program on a national scale particularly if you have any desire and resources to compete in track.

None of my points were about Furman per se but general comments about how best to allocate resources in coaching, scholarship etc. and not what specifically needed to be done there. I am fully aware of what resource can do for a program or how a lack of can hinder progress, success.

in Cbus wrote:

He now is fully-funded for distance runners only, professionals being supported, assistants that are just distance coaches, no indoor track season, great weather, very beautiful campus, and high academics.

Furman is not fully funded.

I don't believe it ever could be.

This is a fallacy.