2024 College Track & Field Open Coaching Positions Discussion

I would think it’s no more than 40k.

What's the word with Colorado Mesa? Are they actually doing a national search, or just elevating someone within the program?

They are not elevating someone. everyone was let go.

Is this just word of mouth or was it confirmed? They are all still listed on the staff online. Such a bizarre deal from the outside looking in with how well they did with both genders.

Wow!!! I took the time to read the petition. I realize it is only one side of the story, but if a fraction of what has been shared is true, this is a bungle of major proportions by the CMU leadership.

I wish this were an exceptionally isolated case, but I've heard of similar situations occurring. It seems that once a person has power, it is simply too easy to abuse that power or discard the perspectives of others over whom they have responsibility.

It’s a story as old as time. This is how it goes. Administration will provide 0 details so supporters don’t have anything to directly argue against.

It’s probably something petty or personal between an admin/AD and one or more coaches.

Fisk - Head Coach

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Head Track and Field Coach

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NAU has a distance job opening

BREAKING:

AD does their job, gets blowback.

My only issue reading that is the performance plan thing but I guess if several athletes have broken bones that's a common enough theme to intervene.

No doubt this will go to a female candidate. And it probably should.

This AD is terrible for track and field. Her husband was or is a baseball coach and use to coach at Art U. That time she has cut or reduced track and field support at places she's worked. She's also been fired as well because of it.

Knowing Smith & NAU they'll hire an alum. Aldo Marquez graduated in 2022, spent 18months as a GA and was promoted to director of ops. Becca Pflugrad is the
Assistant Coach - Distance & Mid-Distance and prior to coaching at NAU she ran under Smith at Georgetown graduating in 2016 and then did a year working in student life before being hired at NAU

Respectfully, I would amend your comment to: "AD does their job (poorly), gets blowback"

Realizing this is a one-sided story, still, the following needs clarification: "...however when AD McDermott saw this runway in our indoor facility she got frustrated with Coach Gamble and attacked his character and integrity." If that is true, it is puzzling.

Another needing clarification: "Some athletes got stress fractures in their shins (a normal part of every TFXC team) and AD McDermott cited Coach Gamble as the responsible party."

Which athletes? One's that Gamble coached or one (or more) of the assistants? And what was the cause - overtraining, nutrition, something else? Did the cause continue (i.e. implication Gamble and/or assistants) or were corrections enacted?

One research study cited that about 1/3 of U.S. College XC/T&F athletes has a stress reaction at any given point in time. Did the number of incidents exceed that "norm?"

If not, then it appears the AD may have been setting Gamble up for failure because of something potentially petty. Effective leaders do not throw others under the bus.

Gamble was named the RMAC Men's Indoor and Outdoor Coach of the Year.
If a horrible offense had taken place then he or the staff would have been fired when it happened, but it didn't. The AD had an agenda and the teams and staff were successful in spite of it.

Absolutely if theirs any real issues or reasons for their decisions they will not hesitate to publish, but in these case admins will simple say “We are going in a different direction” classic BS

Who is getting the New Mexico Jumps job? Seems like it could be a good spot and create movement for other decent positions. Thoughts?

The unspoken stuff about TFXC coaching (probably other college sports, too):

1. State jobs, but they can go to friends and spouses (nepotism anyone?)

2. State jobs, but unlike all the other state employees, you can be terminated if your boss the head coach is terminated, regardless of your good performance.

3. Head coaches can lose their jobs for no reason, at the end of a contract (“We are moving in a different direction”)

4. The people in Administration who hire and supervise track and field and cross country coaches, budgets, and programs have never done the job before and don’t understand it.

5. P5 programs tend to hire P5 head coaches who have been fired elsewhere, or P5 assistant coaches with no experience being director. Head coaches of successful smaller programs are not often considered, despite there being 1300 head coaches nationwide.

6. What’s a weekend? If coaches divided the number of hours worked and on the road by their salary it would average out to be like $1.79/hour haha

7. Head coaches are put in charge of big budgets and a staffing, but aren’t required to have a single budgeting class or hiring/management class. (Although some do.)

8. You can have a college degree in ANYTHING to be a coach. Credentials are experiential and who you know.

9. There is no existing scale or analysis accepted by the profession/NCAA to calculate TFXC coaching effectiveness. Coaches simply have conference/national team championships (W’s), individual conference/national champions (more W’s), and maybe athletes’ individual marks. But ADs are baffled because there’s no season W/L percentage to compare applicant-to-applicant.

10. If you accept a job you uproot and move within 2-3 weeks. If you are unfortunate enough to be terminated (because your boss was terminated and the new director cleaned house), you have a frenzied 1-2 months to find another coaching job anywhere in the country before the hiring window closes Sept 1st for the year.

whats your point?