Vanderbilt XC/Track & Field Head Coach Rumors

Here's the thing about Vandy.

That school does not GAF about athletics at all.

They ONLY care about doing just enough to stay in the SEC and cash those huge fat SEC checks that come from the success of the other schools in the conference.

Vandy is ONLY in the SEC because they were already there when college sports took off in the 70's. They're a legacy hire. If the SEC were being put together today they would not be there. They're a leach.

They cash massive SEC TV checks, don't even fund a men's track program, hire an unqualified AD based on race and sex. Got lucky with the hire of Corbin as baseball coach, all other sports are at the bottom of the SEC barrel. They make a token effort, but get big time money... guess that shows that Vandy IS the smartest school in the conference.

Well, Vandy really screwed up with the Althea Thomas hire. I hear she is awful to work with. Definitely going to change the school to a sprint/multi school. Knew of a few highly-ranked (nationally) distance girls that were being recruited/planning to commit until this hire. Not any more.

Yes, you did miss it apparently. In the year that Rhonda served as interim head coach, the Duke men went from not qualifying for XC nationals to placing 16th and the women went from not qualifying to being ranked 19th heading into the championship. Try to keep up

uh oh wrote:

I must have missed the part where Duke distance got good???? Duke won a track championship with barely any points from distance.

Yes, you did miss it apparently. In the year that Rhonda served as interim head coach, the Duke men went from not qualifying for XC nationals to placing 16th and the women went from not qualifying to being ranked 19th heading into the championship. Try to keep up[/quote]

Rhonda didn't build the men's team, Ogilvie did. She inherited a team returning every runner. Duke women placed 27th out of 31 in 2021. In 2012 before Rhonda, Duke women placed 7th at NCAAs. Their women are heading in the wrong direction. They didn't qualify any distance runners to NCAAs in track this year.

Anyone know who is being considered for the Distance HC position?

I agree with you 100000%…..absolutely the dumbest hire not just “of the summer”, but the entire program. Still can’t believe Vandy could have gotten one of the country’s best distance runners to join this young team and build this program…..but not now…. Wow

carousel wrote:

Anyone know who is being considered for the Distance HC position?

Who this hire is will show a lot about what the intention of AT is

If they get someone actually good then we know they will at least try to keep the distance in tact.

If she gets someone unqualified that she can ramrod into taking all the money off of then it'll probably not end up working out in the long run

dumbest hire of the summer wrote:

uh oh wrote:

I must have missed the part where Duke distance got good???? Duke won a track championship with barely any points from distance.

Yes, you did miss it apparently. In the year that Rhonda served as interim head coach, the Duke men went from not qualifying for XC nationals to placing 16th and the women went from not qualifying to being ranked 19th heading into the championship. Try to keep up

Rhonda didn't build the men's team, Ogilvie did. She inherited a team returning every runner. Duke women placed 27th out of 31 in 2021. In 2012 before Rhonda, Duke women placed 7th at NCAAs. Their women are heading in the wrong direction. They didn't qualify any distance runners to NCAAs in track this year.[/quote]

Guess you missed the part where Rhonda didn’t take over until about 2016. She inherited Christine Engel’s dumpster fire. Look it up…Rhonda’s women were drastically improved since 2016. And when was the last time Duke’s men did anything under Norm?

Wild Duck Whisperer wrote:

Guess you missed the part where Rhonda didn’t take over until about 2016. She inherited Christine Engel’s dumpster fire. Look it up…Rhonda’s women were drastically improved since 2016. And when was the last time Duke’s men did anything under Norm?

Keep in mind this was a watered down year. Several of the Ivy League schools would have beaten the Duke men, as would some teams that focused on indoor track like Oregon. Some strong schools could have had bad luck with coronavirus.

Duke men made nationals in 2012, placed 21st at nationals in 2010, they qualified in 2009 too. 14th in 2001.

At one point the Duke women qualified for nationals 10 out of 12 years. Women were 8th in 2009 and 7th in 2012.

Rhonda did marginally better than the dumpster fire. She was mediocre at best, and according to Wilbourn she was awful.

Wild Duck Whisperer wrote:

Guess you missed the part where Rhonda didn’t take over until about 2016. She inherited Christine Engel’s dumpster fire. Look it up…Rhonda’s women were drastically improved since 2016. And when was the last time Duke’s men did anything under Norm?

It's funny you use the "inherited a dumpster fire" excuse for her results in her 5th year on the job for the women. But at the same time you give her 100% credit for the men's team that she had only been coaching for 6 months.

You might as well say "Rhonda is a goddess and everything good is because of her and everything bad is someone else's fault"

dumbest hire of the summer wrote:

Wild Duck Whisperer wrote:

Guess you missed the part where Rhonda didn’t take over until about 2016. She inherited Christine Engel’s dumpster fire. Look it up…Rhonda’s women were drastically improved since 2016. And when was the last time Duke’s men did anything under Norm?

It's funny you use the "inherited a dumpster fire" excuse for her results in her 5th year on the job for the women. But at the same time you give her 100% credit for the men's team that she had only been coaching for 6 months.

You might as well say "Rhonda is a goddess and everything good is because of her and everything bad is someone else's fault"

Show me where I gave her 100% credit for the men’s team. I specifically avoided saying anything like that - simply asking when the last time their men did anything. Which - according to you - was 9 years ago. I also intentionally avoided heaping praise on her as you suggest because of the weak year. I simply pointed out it was a good year for Duke XC. That’s it. I coached and recruited against both Engel’s and Rhonda’s teams. I loved it when I recruited and competed against Engel’s teams…not so much against Rhonda’s teams. Was she a miracle worker? No. Did she automatically deserve Duke or Vanderbilt’s head jobs? No. But she did a good job. Notice how Wilbourn hired someone who’s never actually coached her own athletes…make of that what you will.

So who is going to be the distance coach now?

A young white male with little coaching experience so he gets no scholarship money and won't push back?

Right, there's not much incentive or hope for Vandy to really be much more than a (well-funded) glorified intramurals program. Every other SEC school depends on dumbed-down admissions and academics to succeed at athletics, that's a basic fact. And Vandy is never going to go that route, they would have long ago if that were at all possible there. Sure, once in a blue moon you can line up some good recruits and manage redshirts to break through to win an SEC title and go to nationals in a sport other than football or basketball. But that's going to continue to be the exception to the rule. It's not a there-until-retirement job unless you're alumni or unless you've had your primary opportunity for competitive success somewhere else already. For anyone in the first half of their career it'll be a stepping stone toward brighter lights and bigger budgets in the Big 12, Big 10, SEC, Pac 12, and ACC.

Althea really struggled to produce All-Americans in her event group at Georgia, what makes anyone think she's going to do better at Vanderbilt? The admissions standards and academic rigors are going to make it significantly harder than it was at Georgia. They should have hired a distance coach.

Who is Althea hiring as her distance coach? Been some interesting names tossed around. Alberto Salazar the biggest of the names being heard as he wants opportunity to coach which he can do since NCAA not included in a WADA ban. Scalene Flanagan expressed interest. Joe Walker is also under consideration along with Greg Metcalf supposedly. Maybe Shelby Houlihan should apply.

Congrats Althea Thomas!!!

Awful to work with meaning other coaches or runners? I know that AT was well regarded by all the other coaches and runners at UGA so I'm not sure where you heard this.

Most likely, she will hire someone she knows and trusts as the distance coach, as is typical of head coaches.

uh oh wrote:

whereisrhonda wrote:

My question is, after all this talk about Rhonda going to be head coach at Vandy and then they go and hire Althea, where tf is Rhonda going?!

I don’t think anyone actually knew anything about it, they just assumed. There’s still a chance Althea could bring in Rhonda as distance coach but I imagine Rhonda is looking for a director/HC position

Why is this a big deal? She's qualified to be a head coach. Vandy needs to develop a sprint program. All she needs to do is hire a quality cross-country-distance coach to build and develop on what they already have.

This isn't rocket science!

So you think that Vandy is bad at sprints because the coaches don't know anything about sprints or do you think that a) no good sprinters can get into Vandy and b) it would be idiocy to try to compete against LSU, FL, and GA in sprints.