UNC cut's "All-American" 800 Runner...

It's the school colors! They are SO CUTE!

Craddock has used the domineering father figure approach to coaching for years. Women respond to this method and men can't stand it. I wonder if Whit uses the same coaching style. There is no question in my mind that Whit is not a good coach. Why you ask. When Shalane won NCAA XC the womens team only placed 10th or 11th. They were totally stacked and could not place any higher. A good coach gets his/her 4-6 runners to run well. If he had done that they could have been a top 5 team. Shalane would have been great wherever she chose to run. The mens team should not be in the bottom half of the conference. Coaching and recruiting both seem to be lacking at UNC.

We've heard all of this coaching bashing, but no one has come forward to say specifically WHAT they were doing that was so bad? you can trash whit and craddock all day as people, but we havent heard a word about the actual training they prescribe.

Are their training philosophies sub par? or is it that all of these athletes just dont like the fact that they arent high school stars anymore? I feel like if the problems were entirely the coach's, we would have heard more about them, but instead all we get is a bash on whit's personality.

IM not saying there are no faults in the program, we all know there are, but why havent specific problems been named?

the unc women are a bunch of nappy headed hos

When I was on the team I believe the largest complaint was the lack of individualism in planning and there seemed to be little realization that all athletes cannot be coached the same. I can't speak for the cross country, MD, or Distance guys, but for the short sprinters and jumpers I rarely recall workouts being tailored for the individual. E.G. If jumper X has a problem hitting the board in the long jump, but has a great take off and landing it seems confusing that he was would be doing the exact same things in practice as Jumper Y, while jumper Y's problems are the exact opposite of jumper X. In short, everyone cannot be trained the exact same way and receive the same results.

Now i'll attempt to address the walk-on issue as i saw it when i was on the team. I believe people felt they did not receive the personal attention (coaching-wise), that they thought would by joining a College-level program, because the coaches were stretched thin by the number of walk-ons.

If we look at the issue as objectively as possible, I'm sure we could all agree there is a mix between short-comings of athletes and coaches from the earlier posted list. Some people posting negative things are doing some because they are upset and others are posting positive statements because they see a few big names and assume that means everything is paradise, while probably a larger number were just thankful they had the chance to be on a DI team. I would suspect there is another large number of people, who for a various number of reasons, always assume that when athletes leave the team, regardless of whether they quit or were kicked off, should be treated as weak, disrespectful, or just brats. As i hinted at earlier, this fits for some, but this does not accurately cover the entire scope of individuals.

I had a medical withdrawal after hip surgery. I had spoken with the coaching staff, the academic advisors, and everyone else who needed to know about my decision, but learned over the summer that I was no longer welcome on the team come next fall. Just to be clear, i'm not using this to bad mouth the staff, but just as a real life example to say that everyone who isn't on the team wasn't so because they could not perform or could not handle the workouts. Beyond that, you can infer what you'd like from the post.

Funny how these posts always seem to come up around signing period for scholarships.

As an outside observer at Duke last weekend, I saw a whole lot of UNC guys entered in events with seed times that they could not remotely get close to. That was terrible and they knocked good athletes out of the better heats.

to all you former alumni who keep bashing the program:

if for nothing else but the sake of us who still are in the program and bleed carolina blue, please quit coming on here and bashing us and our coach. i don't care how much you guys hate whit or craddock - it's time for you to move on.

I think this last post would be a nice closer. Thank you

I think it's only fair for alumni who still bleed Carolina blue, who have put in the time and effort, and want to voice their opinions to do so. If you cannot accept the opinions of others i would suggest you not continue to read the thread.

Because you responded to my post, I'll be the first to let you know that I support the team week in and week out and have been to every meet ran in the state so far this year if for no other reason than to cheer you guys on. Also on a more personal note, I don't hate Craddock, Whit, or anyone else on the staff. That serves me little to no purpose at this point in my life.

Sheldon Rivens wrote:

I think it's only fair for alumni who still bleed Carolina blue, who have put in the time and effort, and want to voice their opinions to do so. If you cannot accept the opinions of others i would suggest you not continue to read the thread.

Oh shut up.

That's a good one. I agree

We've heard all of this coaching bashing, but no one has come forward to say specifically WHAT they were doing that was so bad? you can trash whit and craddock all day as people, but we havent heard a word about the actual training they prescribe.

Are their training philosophies sub par? or is it that all of these athletes just dont like the fact that they arent high school stars anymore? I feel like if the problems were entirely the coach's, we would have heard more about them, but instead all we get is a bash on whit's personality.

IM not saying there are no faults in the program, we all know there are, but why havent specific problems been named?

In summary: there are no problems with the coaching staff, a full scholarship athlete running around 17:00 in a 5k, and if that is too fast do not over look the blazing 16:00 by another varsity athlete. Keep it real, alum - you should be pissed, has to be very hard to explain 17:00 5k's. Unless I got the results confused with a high school race?

Sounds like they overpaid for their Kenyan. Did they keep the receipt?

Sheldon Rivens wrote:

Because you responded to my post, I'll be the first to let you know that I support the team week in and week out and have been to every meet ran in the state so far this year if for no other reason than to cheer you guys on.

I'll look for you at the home meet this Saturday then.

Tyson Evensen was suspended from the team because he keeps getting in trouble stealing from people. Last I heard the local police were looking into filing charges against him. He had quite an operation going.

He deserves everything he gets. I doubt he'll ever learn and will eventually end up in jail. I heard if it weren't for his mother, he'd be in jail now.

I heard with VIC going down, UNC is going to hire Simmons to take over the men's XC program.

Fine.