Coach of 1:48 HSer says “The most important thing is that I am his coach.”

That was a great interview! I would love to talk shop with Coach Oz.

Lol, I was sure this was going to be an old thread discussing how Tinman called Drew Hunter not that talented and claimed Tinman training was the main reason why he was so successful in high school. Funny to see it's about another coach, although I don't think this one was serious like Tinman.

rare wrote:

Lol, I was sure this was going to be an old thread discussing how Tinman called Drew Hunter not that talented and claimed Tinman training was the main reason why he was so successful in high school. Funny to see it's about another coach, although I don't think this one was serious like Tinman.

Agreed. Ozzie should have pulled a tinman and gone on about average Lester's talent is.

I'm posting this just for the irony.

gadgdfgs wrote:

No it definitely was not a joke. Maybe you should go back to 3rd grade because you that's where your reading level is.

I ran against this guy in middle school and high school. In middle school he was a stud, ran a sub 5 minute mile, although he was 15 in eighth grade. High school he was pretty good, but kind of fizzled out and never raced well in big races.

By the time he got to college at Cornell I believe, he sucked. Barely broke 4 min for the 1500, and he was a 4:15 miler in HS.

Lancaster Larry wrote:

He was obviously joking. The guy has a solid background, running for Cornell (more than most high school coaches), but seems to understand the pattern of coaches with talented kids that think it's about them. His Ivy League education has equipped him to craft a joke that might be missed by those with lesser intelligence.

Bingo.

Sarcasm / tone is lost on the internet. ANyone who know Ozzie knows it was a joke. I can confirm that the "John Lester" posting on this thread was the real John Lester. We just gave him a verified account in red.

CoachIsDouche wrote:

There is no such thing as a HS coach who is a big deal.

Clown.

REALLY?

Colm O'Connel?

Scott Raczko?

John Babington?

All of the unnamed coaches who turn out scores of solid runners every year?

I will not deny the fact that there are excellent coaches in the NCAA and pro ranks, but the high school ranks are filled with coaches who are better than the lower end college coaches. The guy who takes 7-8 guys a year who are 8:00 milers in PE class and turns them into 4:50 guys is never going to get the acclaim as a guy that takes a handful 4:10 guys down to 3:58 over the course of his career, but I would argue that the "coaching" required for the first example is every bit as hard to master as the coaching required for the second.

I don't know who the coach at West Torrance high school is, but I've seen those guys at meets and literally half the lead pack of EVERY race is made of WeTo kids. THAT'S impressive

CoachB wrote:

The guy who takes 7-8 guys a year who are 8:00 milers in PE class and turns them into 4:50 guys is never going to get the acclaim as a guy that takes a handful 4:10 guys down to 3:58 over the course of his career, but I would argue that the "coaching" required for the first example is every bit as hard to master as the coaching required for the second.

I agree with most of what you said, but this is not true.

A good HS coach wrote:

CoachB wrote:

The guy who takes 7-8 guys a year who are 8:00 milers in PE class and turns them into 4:50 guys is never going to get the acclaim as a guy that takes a handful 4:10 guys down to 3:58 over the course of his career, but I would argue that the "coaching" required for the first example is every bit as hard to master as the coaching required for the second.

I agree with most of what you said, but this is not true.

I'm assuming you're saying that it's harder to take a guy from 4:10 to 3:58 over the course of 4 years than it is to get 7-8 different guys to run 4:50 or better every year. I just don't know. They're both difficult and both require a completely different skill set.

I don't know if you could take a Mike Smith or a John McDonald and drop 'em off at xyz high school, student population of about 1,000, with no real youth feeder program, a barely existant junior high program and no real history of distance running tradition in your whole county. Have him grab 10-12 9th graders every year and have half of them run between 4:30 and 4:50 year after year, for decades. At least, it would take a while to develop the skill set, to do so. I know for a fact that my college coach would have never been able to do it.

I watched Bruce Edwards do exactly that for years. He gained some fame when he had the chance to work with a fantastically talented German Fernandez, but he was a great coach for decades before that.

Based on what you've posted on other threads, I think I know who you are and you're definately one of the guys that are every bit as good as any coach in the NCAA.

Back to the original point of the thread....Lester IS lucky to have Coach Ozzie. 1:48 is an impressive time and most coaches probably wouldn't have the knowledge to get that time out of him.

It's not rocket science. A couple hard workouts a week, a day of rest, miles in between for stamina and strength...rinse and repeat. The key ingredient>>>talent.

Whoever this 1:48+ guy is, he can argue all he wants, but the God given talent is the key.

CoachC wrote:

It's not rocket science. A couple hard workouts a week, a day of rest, miles in between for stamina and strength...rinse and repeat. The key ingredient>>>talent.

Whoever this 1:48+ guy is, he can argue all he wants, but the God given talent is the key.

By that metric, then all the college coaches should be taking all of their talented guys they get coming out of high school and dropping them from 4:10 to 3:58.... If all it takes is a couple of hard workouts per week.

Certainly Lester is talented, nobody's claiming he's not. With a less experienced coach, he may have gone what, 1:51? 1:52? which will still be a finalist at the CA state meet.

I think you're also selling short how rare it is to get large numbers of guys going under 4:50 at your average public high school. In the Sac Joaquin Section. If you've got a team where all 7 guys have already broken 4:50 going into the season, You've got a team that can place top 3 in any division. As a matter of fact, this past fall, only 2 schools in the entire section (198 schools) were able to claim that they carried 7 guys who had gone under 4:50 on the track the previous spring: Division 1 champion, Jesuit of Sacramento (not public, #4 team in CA power merge) and Division 2 champion Whitney of Rocklin.

Always interesting in just about every coaching thread on Let's Run that coaches are considered both all important and irrelevant at the same time. The truth is, as always, somewhere in the middle. When the right kid gets in the right program magic can happen - as looks to be the case here. Good coaches mostly have their own style, and just because a kid does not work in a particular style (i.e. Colorado isn't for everyone but no one should say Wetmore isn't a good coach) doesn't mean the coach is awful or that the kid isn't talented or hard working.

Glad it worked out in this case and hope the kid continues to be successful.

CoachCallout wrote:

http://www.crosscountryexpress.com/2020/06/catching-up-with-amador-valley-hs-coach.html

Link to the article, quote is at very end. This guy is so self inflating.

“I think part of the reason that you sent me these questions is because you want to get a better sense of what makes John so good. But you never asked that. First, John is good because he was born with some talent. You don't run 1:48 ever, much less as a 17 year old if you don't have some talent. But not everyone who can run 1:48, does. So the most important thing is that I'm his coach. Simple as that.”

Really???? It was a sarcastic comment....PERIOD!!

Also, having a coach in high school who you can trust and believe in is HUGE!!! There's a lot of talented young athletes who never reach their full potential because they haven't the confidence and or support of a good coach. Coaching isn't just about putting together workouts (you can find that all over the internet), it's equally if not more so about building a trusting relationship that not only develops an athlete but also a person who can go out into the world and make it a better place. We all should be applauding Coach Ozzie and the success of John Lester.

Look at the BIG PICTURE people!!!!

"Go Run One"

Everyone that has met that clown knows he's very full of himself.

Congratulations on a great run! Glad you have a coach you relate to well and obviously you get each other's sense of humor. Keep up the hard work because as you're seeing, it all adds up. Keep rolling!

Take it by whatever metric you'd like, it doesn't faze me in the least. Hard work only gets you so far, talent trumps it every time with all other things being equal or even close to equal. Yes, the talented have to work hard too...duh?

By your response, you're obviously subscribing to 3 or more hard workouts per week. I'm sure you were incredibly successful;)

I coached at College. You run them hard 3 times a week and you're just playing the odds of how few will end up with injuries...Vegas wins more times than they lose or there'd be no such thing as Vegas;)

Most break down or simply don't run anywhere near their potential.. I'd love to name a certain Division 1 College where the Coach had almost 2/3rds of his runners banged up and injured by the time the real races started 2 seasons ago...but I will restrain;)

CoachC wrote:

By your response, you're obviously subscribing to 3 or more hard workouts per week. I'm sure you were incredibly successful;)

I coached at College. You run them hard 3 times a week and you're just playing the odds of how few will end up with injuries...Vegas wins more times than they lose or there'd be no such thing as Vegas;)

Most break down or simply don't run anywhere near their potential.. I'd love to name a certain Division 1 College where the Coach had almost 2/3rds of his runners banged up and injured by the time the real races started 2 seasons ago...but I will restrain;)

There's a lot to unpack in this response

1. Not sure what I posted on this thread that gives you the impression that I'm a "go hard 3 times a week guy". Bruce Edwards certainly was, so maybe you know him personally. Sometimes 3 quality sessions in a week is appropriate, sometimes it's not.

2. I'm guessing your guys (or ladies) ran hard 2 times per week....that's fine, especially at the upper mileage levels. Less need / ability to do quality sessions if your legs are always tired from big miles....and that works for a lot of people.

3. I'm assuming that you're saying that most college coaches run a meat grinder type of program and hope for a couple of national qualifiers to emerge while the rest of the kids fall apart. OK, fine, I don't know how that validates your original point that Lester's coach is in no way responsible for his success, or how a coach that takes a handful of 4:10 guys down to 3:58 over the course of a career is any better than the coach high school coach that can get a bunch noobs into good runners year after year after year. I think what you're saying is that a bad college coach would never get his 4:10 guy to 3:58 because he'd burn 'em out. Possibly....possibly someone ultra talented and able to absorb training would end up dropping a 3:52. A bad high school coach, even at a big school with lots of talent will never get to the point where multiple kids with zero to little running experience are developing into sub 4:50, sub 16:30 guys every year. A good high school coach can do this, but will get very little recognition outside of his own area.

IMO, a good coach is a good coach at any level and is ESSENTIAL for athletes to develop to their potential.

Hey John! Great Prs I would love for you join me at University of Washington next year and bet you will not get any faster with that clown as a coach. I probably won't help improve your times either since I bring in the best and they just stay the same.

I take the best and keep them the same!! No one is better then me in the game