Except that there are local junior colleges that can beat them.
Except that there are local junior colleges that can beat them.
Culture is a big part I think. If the athletes and coaches who are expected to be leaders are downplaying the importance of running and not serious about performing at a top level then that may rub off on the entire team. If the team is more concerned about drinking and partying or maybe studying and school, then that affects the training being done. On the other hand, if you're around a bunch of people and coaches who are determined to strive for greatness, PRs and winning, then they could achieve results accordingly.
Some Coaches Suck wrote:
I’m in Northern CA and I can come up with a list of colleges that are terrible. You could take people off the street and train them for six months and be better than a Sac State or UOP.
I also live in Northern California and would like to see your list of terrible schools for running. Sac State is primarily a commuter school. UOP doesn't seem to emphasize any sports and Stockton is one of the worst cities in the U.S. Of course, Stanford and Cal are located in Northern Cal.
The ability to have a good XC team is going to be a function of location, quality of the education, climate and the recruiting abilities of the coach. It's nonsense that only a handful of coaches can put together a reasonable training schedule.
Honestly I’m not even taking about good. How about NOT terrible? I gave you two schools, how many would you like? You can be Not terrible without any recruiting at all. You can’t get a 19-20 year old woman to run under 20 minutes? Many can if trained. Sac State can’t even field a full men’s team.
You care but obviously the school doesn't.
I used to coach at D1 schools but it's been a while. That said: The last I knew, there are more than a few D1 teams in our sports that exist only for compliance with NCAA rules about sponsoring a certain number of sports at each institution, and get the bare minimum of funding (including part-time coaches and little or no scholarship money).
If you're making four figures as a twelve-months coach--and I've known several who were making that (or less), and not in the high four figures either--then you have to work another job or two to keep body and soul together. It's tough, esp. for someone with a family, to justify an extra 10-20 hours/week for recruiting, and it's easy to just focus on the kids you have--or the ones who show up. If you can field a full team at the requisite number of meets, and maybe show that the athletes are improving, the AD will be just as happy as if she were in her right mind.
I was actually at a school where I was able to improve the team markedly from my first year to the second (mostly via some good/lucky recruiting), and the AD was not particularly pleased: Qualifying several athletes for Nationals in that second year was *not* in the budget, which was based on the (unrecruited) team that I was presented with in my first year, and he apparently he had to do some scrambling. After that year it was suggested that I leave, though I did stay one more year on a part-time basis.
If anyone coaches for the money then they are lost. There are high school coaches that put in more hours then some of these terrible coaches and make a fraction. Money is no excuse for being a terrible coach.
Many D1 coaches do it for the money.
Not when they are making four figures
Those aren't the ones doing it for the money. Many of the 6 figure coaches at Power 5 programs are not running top programs.
True. And there are different levels of terrible. Totally bad overall and bad enough to take on their competitors
I would imagine a lot of kids who ran in HS just don't want to run in college.
If you are a school with minimal scholarship money why would a kid run for you just to get beat up in meets by schools who have tons of talent be scholarship money?
Some kids just want to go to college without the distraction.
It's easier to say "just pick some guy off the street and train them" than actually getting that guy to run consistently for you.
Alan
Both schools I used as an example are both D1 and have scholarships. So they are both bad at recruiting as well as training.
I’m sure they could get kids from other parts of the country to come to their schools to run in California at their D1 programs they just don’t know how to recruit at their level and expect to find national champions and don’t go after realistic prospects.
Some Coaches Suck wrote:
Both schools I used as an example are both D1 and have scholarships. So they are both bad at recruiting as well as training.
I’m sure they could get kids from other parts of the country to come to their schools to run in California at their D1 programs they just don’t know how to recruit at their level and expect to find national champions and don’t go after realistic prospects.
Send a list of 10 hs seniors that you think you could recruit to sac state... remember they have to be from California, you can’t give them more than 3k (I would guess you can’t give them any money) they have to want to attend a commuter school in a relatively expensive area, they have a to not care that that team sucks but still want to spend a lot of time being on the team, the have to not want to attend Chico where they will get more money and be on a better team, and I’m sure some other things I haven’t thought of.
Also sac coach may be wack, I have no idea but I know I wouldn’t want that job.
The seniors you could get would be people that neither of us have heard of. But you could take some unknown and get them faster than 21 minutes for women or just to show up for men. Why from CA? They get people from out of State all the time. Sacramento is also relatively cheap compared to many areas in the state. They just try to recruit people they aren’t going to get.
How is University of Mayland, a major state university in the Big Ten so bad?
I ran for a D1 team that consistently seemed to underperform, and I thought a lot of the blame lay on our training: an overemphasis on fast, hard interval work and an underemphasis on long, moderate efforts (e.g. tempos, cruise intervals, steady long runs, etc). Lots of racing and lots of really hard, almost race-effort interval workouts with ~2-4 miles of volume, but a surprising absence of the kind of long grinding workouts that would ultimately form the core of my post-collegiate training. Not sure if this is the case at other underperforming schools though.
Some schools are just terrible.
If they were just trying to fill roster spots would you accept a full ride to run for Tennessee State University?
I know I wouldn't want to waste my time.
Underfunded.