Alford-Sullivan to coach both Men's & Women's Program at PSU

This message is in response to all the people that have doubted coach Groves coaching throughout this board. You are completely off base with your assumptions about his ability to coach. The problem with people that think they are runners because they jog on the weekends is that they have no idea what it takes to be successful. Everyone on here likes to blame coaches for not doing this and that when alot of the blame has to be put on the athletes. You have to have athletes that are willing to work and that is fact.

In response to the messages regarding the combing of the programs:

I think that somewhere in my reading I read that the workouts that the men do are a joke. I would like to know where you are getting your info. And if you do have first hand info I would be interested to hear what you would do if you had the opportunity to coach the team. I find it difficult to believe that the womens team is working harder thatn the mens team. They may have been successful, but that does not mean that the mens workouts are a joke.

In response to an early post about Paterno. I believe it was in the 70s or 80s, there was a request to make all Penn State employees salraies public. The University agreed on a few conditions. I believe to keep the President's and Paterno's salary hidden. Everyone agreed to those conditions. It was until last year, that President's salary was made public. Paterno's salary is still unknown to the public.

Whatever JoePa is getting, it's not enough compared to the millions that his program has brought to PSU. Think they'd be a Nike school without the football fame there?

Agreed. She is a dreamer and likes the power and credentials it might get her. I ran for her. My head was not in it back then but it was pretty easy to see that she wasn't a coach (nice lady though, she gave it a good try)and half the team thought she was lame, the other half worshipped her because she was coming from Stanford. The team has never been where it was back in the day when Teri Jordan coached and was on top of her game. I believe both the men and women's teams would succeed with a good stable male coach and a female assistant coach to balance it all out. Just a thought...not an attempt to bash. "Go Penn State!"

well, the truth is that the women have never seen the success that chris brooks had when she was there. does anyone know if she went home to new zealand?

The real wonder is that any great guy would actually believe her bs and go to school there! She basically claims to have been responsible for the Stanford team of 6 years ago.

Beth Alford Sullivan really showed her stuff at Big Tens. The PSU Men finished 2nd from last, but had great "grouping" packing 8 runners in the bottom 35! 8, how did they do that? Cheating of course...

The women did better with an outstanding 8th place, again showing Beths trademark grouping - 5 in the bottom 30!!

Just wait for her recruiting skills to kick in.

Okay, but Chris did cheat. IIRC the women's rules at the time forbade the college coach's *initiation* of contact with a high school coach or athlete--or something like that. Anyway, Chris was quite straightforward about ignoring that--she had scholarship $ to give out and wasn't going to wait to see who showed up on campus each fall!

That said, however, Chris certainly did a solid job of coaching the people she recruited--can't ask for much more...

Well, PSU might not have improved in the standings, but if you look at how bad they ran last year, this year was a big improvement, on both sides. Plus, you have to remember it is the wonderful recruiting that was going on prior to this year that has left PSU in this situation.

Harry probably didn't have much to do with recruiting last year knowing it would be his last year. Besides that the whole being satisfied with an improvement over the yr. prior but still not even cracking top 5 is BS. Penn State should be consistently in the top 3 EVERY year with coach and her "expertise". Maybe establishing the slightest bit of rapport with her athletes would help in the recruiting effort and last but not least, the team's moral.

Whateveryouwantittobe wrote:

the team's moral.

"morale"

correction wrote:

Whateveryouwantittobe wrote:

the team's moral.

"morale"

maybe the team just has no morality?

bootsy wrote:

well, the truth is that the women have never seen the success that chris brooks had when she was there. does anyone know if she went home to new zealand?

she is still in the states. i met her at usatf school in vegas this summer. she was doing instructor training. i think she said she lives in florida.

wait a minute... the men were 5th of 30some teams in their regional? that's not so bad.

Old Main wrote:

Beth Alford Sullivan really showed her stuff at Big Tens. The PSU Men finished 2nd from last, but had great "grouping" packing 8 runners in the bottom 35! 8, how did they do that? Cheating of course...

The women did better with an outstanding 8th place, again showing Beths trademark grouping - 5 in the bottom 30!!

Just wait for her recruiting skills to kick in.

seriously...where are all the critics now?

ralf wrote:

seriously...where are all the critics now?

I have nothing to do with PSU and have no stake in this matter, but are Big 10 finishes of 8th and 9th and Regional finishes of 8th and 5th (in a weak men's region) really seen as statements of any kind?

As has been mentioned, the jury on the men's team is out -- BAS deserves to be given a couple of years recruiting to prove her detractors wrong. The women, however, have had 8 years.

Here they are:

Good recruiting aspect + Great Facilities + State School + Money should = Nationals bound team.

Sucks that it is canceled out by a shitty coach that wont be able to recruit ANYONE.

What about the new assistant coach from Georgia Tech, John Gondak?

How much say does he have in the coaching/recruiting?

don't know, but i think that even thought the region is weak, that's no worse than they'd have done with harry. maybe this gondak is the one who coached them?