Best Ivy League School

I am decidedly better at life than any of you will ever be. I also happen to be an ex-ivy-league track star (ivy med school next year). You can rest assured that there is someone out there who will do great things. Take care.

Just kidding.

outerlimits wrote:

I thought Duke had a pretty poor program, according to other threads on this board. Is Ogelvie a good coach? Do the distance guys improve while they are there?

duke, like most good programs, has some guys who develop phenomenally, some guys who stagnate, and a larger middle group that develops quite well (but short of phenomenally). the group one belongs to largely depends on the individual.

daniel ireland wrote:

easy! wrote:

Can't beat the coaching combo of Rojo, JK, and Wejo, plus the academics are great.

The academics may be great (though they are consistently ranked as one of the lowest Ivy), but judging from the Heps Xc results in the past few years - apparently you CAN beat the coaching of Rojo, et al. - and quite easily too.

7th in 04

http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/documents/mhepscc04.asp

8th in 03

http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/documents/mhepscc03.asp

7th in 02 (1 pt ahead of 8th)

http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/documents/mhepscc02.asp

Notice how yale went from last in 02 - to #3 in 03, then #5 lasy year. Does anyone think that dan ireland is one of the greatest coaches around?

My brother has been at Cornell for 3 years now and done a great job quickly building the top distance program (800 and up) in the ivy league. The team was subpar when my brother came in and now it is the best distance team on the track in the Ivy League. Look it up. Cornell dominated the Heps this year 800 and up. Even go back the last 2 years and i'll bet they have the most points 800 and up. They were 3rd in the DMR at Penn (only beaten by Arkansas and Michigan, beating Stanford and everyone else), 5th in the 4*mile, 8th in the 4*800 (not running their "A" team, they had the #1 time in the nation indoors in this seldom run indoor event). They appear to be the only ivy league team truly competitive in the relays nationally. Making this all the more impressive is the fact that their team wasn't stacked with high school distance studs like some of the other schools in the league when Rojo showed up (the cupboard was dry when rojo came in).

Sure you can point to the XC results which haven't been that good but it takes a few years to recruit people and to build up endurance in kids. The JK theory is not about quick results and rojo is not trying to go for the quick fix in XC. But when you inherit a bunch of young guys and don't have a single guy on the team who had run under 9:25 for 2 miles i don't think these young guys should be expected to be great in XC overnight which is 5+ miles in college. Nonetheless Bruce Hyde, one of Rojo's guys, was the top XC runner in the NorthEast last year, winning the conference and the Northeast region. Not bad for an 8:51 3k guy in high school.

If you give me the name of any other coach in america that has done more with less in 3 years, i'll be surprised as i don't think there is one.

Don't give me any of the credit, i live in ithaca but just show up when i feel like it, observe, and give very limited input. At the same time being a twin with rojo, i take the success of the team very personal. Rojo has done an excellent job. JK also deserved credit as I've said all along he's a genius. He lives in Ithaca and shares his genius on the workouts with rojo.

As i've said often, its usually only the top coaches who get bashed on here.

wejo wrote:

The team was subpar when my brother came in and now it is the best distance team on the track in the Ivy League. Look it up. Cornell dominated the Heps this year 800 and up. Even go back the last 2 years and i'll bet they have the most points 800 and up...

Sure you can point to the XC results which haven't been that good but it takes a few years to recruit people and to build up endurance in kids.

well, they had the most points indoors this past season, but not so outdoors:

by my calculations:

princeton: 32 distance points

cornell: 30

columbia: 29

yale: 27

and even if my math is a bit wrong, or i misssed someone, that is hardly a "dominating" performance.

so, they ran well indoors, did nothing in xc, and were just about the same as 3 other ivy league teams outdoors. i really don't think off that you can call them the class of ivy league.

i find it odd that you dismiss their xc results as saying it is a "long term" approach, but are quick to point out their successes on the track. what is it? are the guys not performing in xc?

i don't doubt that your brother has done a very good job. cornell stunk in the distances before he arrived (where have you gone, brian clas?), but then again the whole team stunk before charlie powell arrived.

as for my earlier statement: does anybody think that daniel ireland, coach of yale, is one of the greatest around? he isn't getting oodles of talent either, yet he's producing some good runners - lucas meyer for example (a 9:25 2miler in hs) - and beating cornell regularly in xc?

if so, why not?

One reason why Cornell gets hurt in the academic rankings is because it is very big compared to the other IVYs. Many ranking systems take into consideration class size, favoring small seminars. But Cornell has a lot of big lectures. I know some professors from other colleges. If you ask them what schools have the best professors and what schools are always at the upper echelon of academia, Cornell is always an answer.

And Cornell runners are good, too.

Even in track Cornell's success lies in their depth not necessarily talent. They have plenty of guys that can a few points in each event, but no runners heads and shoulders above the league (i.e. jaworski, hurtault, ifill, meyer). On the track (including relays), Cornell scored two first places compared to Penn's 4 and Yale's 3 (lesser Ivy teams according to the Cornell runners I know). The problem lies in the fact these teams are smaller and have relatively little in terms of a field events program and simply cannot put up the points that has Cornell's overall depth. Granted this is Cornell's greatest strength, it arrogant to say Cornell dominates the track where it has been easily shown they are on par or even below the Ivies in CC and track. It is a strong field program, in particular the jumps, which I will say Cornell by far has the best Ivy jumps programs, that enables to be dominant. Also, where were their All-Americans if they so dominant? UPenn, Dartmouth, Yale, and Harvard had All-Americans this past outdoor season. If Cornell wants to claim to be a powerhouse on the national level with teams like Michigan, Stanford, and Arkansas, they must produce comparable athletes, a feat not yet seen. Let it be known I'm currently a runner in the Ivy League, and I respect Cornell and all the Ivy teams. However, I am tired of hearing how dominant Cornell is when it is really numbers not necessarily talent.

Everyone has something to bitch about when it comes to those rankings.

talent doesnt matter , winning does. sounds like you got dominated by some no talent kids from cornell.

i agree wrote:However, I am tired of hearing how dominant Cornell is when it is really numbers not necessarily talent.

Perhaps you mean coaching. With Nathan Taylor arrived Cornell was near last in the league. Now they are dominating. When Rojo arrived at Cornell the distances were the weak part of the team. Now they are the leading the league. And the distance guys on his team were of far less talent than the other teams coming out of high school. The coach before him was fired for doing a shitty job of recruiting. So if you mean by numbers that Cornell takes the guys who aren't recruited at other schools and turns them into champs, then ok.

They have won a few years when Princeton definitely should have won.

Just wait until Rojo gets the recruits the caliber princeton has been getting. One of the top 5 mid d freshman in the country last year was Jimmy Wyner. He was good in college but far from a stud. Next thing you know he runs 1:48 and a good 1500. If Rojo starts getting a stud or two a year like some of these other schools, look out.

If the indoor and outdoor heps consisted solely of races 800m and longer the results would have been:

indoors 2005:

Cornell 58

Penn 35

Yale 35

Princeton 32

Dartmouth 20

Brown 18

Columbia 13

Harvard 3

outdoors 2005

Cornell 33

Princeton 25

Yale 22

Penn 21

Columbia 19

Brown 16

Dartmouth 15

Harvard 0

combined 2005

Cornell 91

Princeton 57

Yale 57

Penn 56

Dartmouth 35

Brown 34

Columbia 32

Harvard 03

data below, any corrections welcome!

Princeton:

outdoors

800m:6th (1point)

steeple:4th (4points)

5000m: 1st (10points)

10,000m: 2nd (8points)

indoors:

800m:3rd, 6th (7points)

1000m: 6th (1point)

mile: 5th (2points)

3000m: 5th (2points)

5000m: 3rd, 4th, 5th (12points)

4x800m: 5th (2points)

DMR: 2nd (8points)

total: 57points

Dartmouth

outdoors

800m: 3rd (6 points)

1500m: 4th (4points)

5000m: 6th (1point)

10000m: 4th (4points)

indoors

800m: 2nd (8points)

mile: 4th (4points)

3000m: 4th (4points)

DMR: 4th (4points)

total: 35points

Cornell

outdoors

800m: 2nd, 5th (10points)

1500m: 2nd 3rd (14points)

steeplechase: 2nd, 6th (9points)

indoors

800m: 4th (4points)

1000m: 1st, 2nd (18points)

mile: 1st, 2nd (18points)

3000m: 2nd (8points)

4x800m: 2nd (8points)

DMR: 5th(2points)

total points: 91

Penn

outdoors

800m: 1st, 4th (14points)

1500m: 6th (1point)

10000m: 3rd (6points)

indoors

800m: 1st (10points)

1000m: 4th (4points)

mile: 6th (1point)

3000m: 1st (10points!)

4x800m: 1st (10points)

total: 56points

Columbia

outdoors

1500m: 5th (2points)

steeple: 3rd, 5th (8points)

5000m: 2nd (8points)

10000m: 6th (1point)

indoors

3000m: 6th (1point)

5000m: 2nd (8points)

4x8: 4th (4points)

total: 32points

Yale

outdoors

1500m: 1st (10points!)

steeple: 1st (10points)

5000m: 5th (2points)

indoors

800m: 6th (1point)

1000m:3rd (6points)

mile: 3rd (6points)

5000m: 1st (10points)

DMR: 3rd (6points)

4x800m: 3rd (6points)

total: 57points

Brown

outdoors

5000m: 4th (4points)

10000m:1st, 5th (12points)

indoors

3000m: 3rd (6 points)

5000m: 6th (1point)

DMR: 1st (10points)

4x800m: 6th (1point)

total: 34points

Harvard

outdoors

0

indoors

1000m: 5th (2points)

dmr: 6th (1point)

total 3points

Weldon,

Rojo has undoubtedly done a great job, but since you asked...

Craig Lake and Willy Wood. Craig on the women's side, Willy on the men's, both took programs with 0 to no talent and within 3 years made them Ivy League rock stars.

Tom Kloos and Mike Grant's class was the first recruited class by Willy and within 3-4 years they were 2nd (3rd?) at HEPS and have pretty much been been a pernnial 1-4 team (in cross) since. Not only that, but I will outdo you one more time when I tell you that Kloos was a 9:50/4:22 guy, Grant was a 9:30 guy (they finished 4th and 1st respectively at HEPS) Amerigo Rossi was a 4:16/1:55 guy (and was the stud recruit of the '99 class), Mike Christman was a 10:20, 4:35, 1:57 guy (or somewhere around that), Ray Biersbach wsa a 4:18/1:56 guy (and became a Ivy League track champ), Jason Gibbons ran 4:17 and 1:55 I think (another Ivy League track champ), Matt Young was a 9:50/4:28 type in HS, and James Langstine I don't think ever broke 9:35 and 4:20 in HS. Those guys combined to run some pretty impressive cross performances with a few years of Willy's tenure. And forget about what Lake did.

So, kudos to Robert, but Willy and Craig may outdo him with respect to doing more with less faster (esp in cross). I rfemember Willy couldn't attract top kids to go to Columbia, so he would look for jewels in the rough. Guys who didn't run until their junior year, or someone who was a soccer player but was able to run sub 4:30 off of that. Those were the types he was working with for years. Most didn't make it, though.

does the ivy league score 6 places or 8?

Taking a guy from 4:18/155 to being a heps champ? Someone should talk to Sam Mackenzie, he didn't run that fast in HS and still walked away with a heps title. Rojo is better.

or bruce hyde, 1:58, 4:20, 9:30...

or oliver tassinari, 416

or brian mongeon, 1:56, 4:40?

or gordon hall, 1:55

the list goes on......

The might suck at XC, but they sure turn out some miler/800 guys.

I would have to say that Grant running like 9:35 in HS and then turning out a dominating performance, running 24:37 at VCP, is pretty impressive. Probably more so is Kloos running 4:22 and 9:50 in HS and running 24:59 or 25:00 at VCP (and later 8:30 in the steeple) as well as qualifying for Cross Nationals twice as an individual.

There are certainly guys who were slower than a lot of the columbia guys I mentioned who had similar or better careers, but my point is that Robert isn't the only run to take a horrible team and with next to nothing, make it into a great team. Columbia was the joke of the Ivy's, both men and women, and with decent at best talent, grew into the best ivy for cross (take an average of performances for the last 7-8 years and I would bet that Columbia is the best team with the most individual winners).

No one can change the fact that Columbia throughout the 80s and much of the 90s were horrible and now they are a perennial favorite. The facts are the facts. The facts are also that they turned the hump with decent but not spectacular talent...

cornell runners: we get it. you like rojo. he's a good mid-d coach

time to talk about something else

Every school can come up with examples of good-but-not-great HSers who became studs in college, making this nothing more than a typical IVY pissing contest. Here are two more Columbia guys, by the way --

CU -- Galgano - 1:57 to 1:48

Sundell - 9:23 to 8:0x, 13:5x, 24:3x VCP

Princeton.