Who got more results? Alberto Salazar or Jerry Schumacher?

But wait I thought all the nop people were working with Julian that is what they all say.

In the end it's all about medals. Everything else is nice but pales in comparison outside of the distance running world. AlSal had the best results and it's not close.

Most people pull up record more than they pull up medal counts. Random high school kids want to know what the US record is in the mile more than they want to know who won the gold medal in the 2012 1500.

Salazar, by cheating.

I’d say Salazar Men and Jerry Women

Farah & Rupp 1-2 at Olympics won’t be replicated by Schumacher boys.

Lol AlSal got a ban from the sport, I don't think you can really top that!

Metals and records are everything ! there will always be fast and faster people.

Centro and Shalene don't count for Jerry. They we're developed by Alberto for too much years

If we're looking strictly at their athletes' results, AlSal has had more success. Don't forget about Kejelcha and Hassan.

Do you know if Amy Cragg is still running ?

How many athletes have been ruined by these coaches? Jerry has had some great success but it's mostly short term. Mo Ahmed and Evan Jager have been able to sustain long term success under Jerry but nearly every single one of his other athletes barely last a season or two before being injured.

alexi pappas wrote:

Do you know if Amy Cragg is still running ?

Not officially retired yet but clearly is toast. If her husband is coaching that Puma group in NC, she may be going along to be the squad's veteran leader and assistant-coach-in-training. Nike/BTC probably isn't looking to extend her contract past the end of this year. She could probably still command a decent appearance fee at a fall marathon next year.

qwenfjwebf wrote:

How many athletes have been ruined by these coaches? Jerry has had some great success but it's mostly short term. Mo Ahmed and Evan Jager have been able to sustain long term success under Jerry but nearly every single one of his other athletes barely last a season or two before being injured.

Find any coach with a dozen WC athletes, and there are almost always casualties. Top level running is living at the edge where you take on huge risks for a few seconds of gain.

I always got the impression that NOP was a lot more focused on a half dozen athletes and the rest of the team was sort of workout partners.

boring, correct answer wrote:

Salazar, by cheating.

This is how I feel too. Mo was just too good in a H2H with these two groups. But Bowerman is 1000x more fun & easier to root for.

i think it is pretty clear that jerry takes the edge with women. As far as men, alberto has probably the top 3 with mo/galen/centro, but jerry probably takes the next 6-7 spots at least.

A fun way to look at things is depth. A great talent is easy to coach, but a good coach can get many athletes to run well. As such, try thinking of it like this: if you had the 7 best NOP men and women race the 7 best BTC men and women at xc, with all athletes in their prime, who wins? BTC wins both team races.

Disappointing that these two coaches and their groups couldn't stage an annual dual xc meet in the off-season on some manicured course (Rupp Certified, naturally) around Portland or Eugene and webcast it as a publicity stunt. Farah and Derrick duking it out, Rowbury running down Houlihan under steel grey skies on Christmas Eve would have been so good!

Shalane was never coached by Alberto

To the OP:

You can add Kara Goucher to the Alberto list - she ran her best under him.

Also Farah is British so he isn’t running American records....

Salazar in his own running career has more results than Jerry. Off the top of my head, American record in the 5000, 10000, marathon, winning Boston and NYC, ran for the U.S. at the Olympics and won the Commrades marathon 10 years past his prime. I don't know of anything Jerry has done in his own respect in running other than coaching. So Salazar is the clear winner.

Shalane never ran for Alberto but her best track era was definitely her time with Cook (who i believe cites salazar as a coaching mentor/influence which is maybe what the previous poster was referring to). Her 10,000m silver was under cook, her 14:44 5,000m AR was under cook, and her 14:47 indoor 5,000m AR was a few months after leaving Cook. but before she had begun working with Jerry, so could also probably be chalked up to Cook.

Her best track season was one summer, maybe 2010, where she ran 14:45-14:48 for the 5,000m 3 or 4 times in Europe trying to get her AR back from Huddle. Probably the most times an American has ever gone sub 14:50 in one season. She never got her AR back though.

I would say her career pre-Jerry slightly eclipsed her career post-jerry until her New York win which tipped the scale, but it's still pretty close IMO.