lease wrote:
Official announcement:
https://cyclones.com/news/2021/6/16/track-field-m-track-cross-country-director-smith-and-iowa-state-part-ways.aspxI know no details and will not speculate.
Barkley just mentioned this last weak.
Charles Barkley Says Teams Only ‘Part Ways’ With White Coaches: ‘They Fire Brothers, They Don’t Part Ways’
Why would an AD fire his brother? If Smith was named Pollard it would say he was fired?
They were 4th best program according to USATFCCC last week behind Arkansas, BYU and Ole Miss during this weird covid season.
They bombed at NCAA outdoors and probably ran too many high level races in a compressed season. As far as athletes not following a coaches instructions for race strategies, theres probably some truth to that as someone else suggeated and yes, thats a trust issue. Smith ran a lot of people the wrong way, athletes, workers, competitors wanting into their meets, high school coaches etc.... New blood will be welcomed.
RichardRider wrote:
cyclone view wrote:
Kurgat and Kiptoo would not be at ISU without Jeremy. The middle distance success is his work.
Yes, you can bet that father and son had many conversations over the years. His observations were most likely a combination of the coach being an arrogant, stand-offish coach that was not athlete centered and liked to hear himself more than listen to his athletes. The assistant was doing the work of helping the athletes succeed but they were required to run too many events in a covid affected schedule. Smarter programs with a lot less talent looked a lot better last week. So yeah, AD Pollard's observations were probably a combination of a lot more info/data than most AD's give a crap about their programs.
Great news for the program and the athletes of the future. They need a leader that can help the culture become a more positive experience for the student athletes.
100%^^^
messi wrote:
Dr. Coleman wrote:
I was always curious if Smith even tried to tell Kiptoo to not take races out in suicidal paces or at least tone it down a bit. Either he was ok with this dumb tactic or he couldn't get one of his top athletes to listen to him (also bad).
Do you think it possible that Kiptoo was burnt out by outdoor nationals?
3 events at outdoor conference; 2 events at Regionals; 2 events at NCAA's. And consider his indoor nationals/cross country nats back-to-back.
Fair?
This^^^^
Jed is dumb wrote:
Why would an AD fire his brother? If Smith was named Pollard it would say he was fired?
not sure if this was intentional bc of your username but that’s not what he meant
I ran for Martin a while back. He was the best coach I ever had. Tough on guys? Yes. But he got the most out of all of us. He is great at developing runners. If you ran for him and didn’t like him, it’s because you were soft and couldn’t take a tough coach. Hate to break it to you!
isufan13 wrote:
Anything to do with how poorly Kiptoo and Kurgat ran? Sudbury seems very up and coming. I wonder if they will hire him on full time
Lol a track coach is never fired for performance. Never. And to whoever suggested it was his very, *very* loose connection to BTC, I doubt the AD has even bothered following that story. I’m sure this has everything to do with Martin being a well known, long time, hall of fame a$$hole.
Not many runners at UW liked him.
Pollard is the biggest track fan in the world. Houlihan is from Iowa. He story is all over the place in Des Moines.
Former SA wrote:
I ran for Martin a while back. He was the best coach I ever had. Tough on guys? Yes. But he got the most out of all of us. He is great at developing runners. If you ran for him and didn’t like him, it’s because you were soft and couldn’t take a tough coach. Hate to break it to you!
I do respect your POV as a former athlete and certainly Martin has been successful everywhere he's been until he wears out his welcome. I don't think he was fired because the kids are soft. I think his head games border on abusive and have seen him run tough committed kids off the team. Furthermore, his training, while state of the art in 1985, is lacking in some fundamental aspects.
If he has run good kids off of the team and his 1985 methods are outdated, hiw are his teams winning P5 conf championships and competing nationally?
Agreed. This is hardly surprising, the only surprising thing is that it took this long.
Cyclones wrote:
Still Waiting wrote:
6 hour practices.. their distance runners are doing 60 mile runs?
Pre-run WU/stretching, running, WU/CD jogs if workout day, core, weight lifting, listening to Martin rant for 2 or more hours about the topic of the day
source: I ran for Martin Smith at Iowa State
Is he a Mike Keenan sort of coach ?
Can only take so much of him ?
RichardRider wrote:
cyclone view wrote:
Kurgat and Kiptoo would not be at ISU without Jeremy. The middle distance success is his work.
Great news for the program and the athletes of the future. They need a leader that can help the culture become a more positive experience for the student athletes.
And everyone thinks Sudbury’s the guy? Scrupulously poaching Kenyans before they’re on the portal through his guys? Is Pollard paying for his burner phones or are those undisclosed cash advances?
Sudbury has been with Smith since college. How would he be different? If there are issues but he was willing to turn his head, that can't be good.
RichardRider wrote:
They were 4th best program according to USATFCCC last week behind Arkansas, BYU and Ole Miss during this weird covid season.
They bombed at NCAA outdoors and probably ran too many high level races in a compressed season. As far as athletes not following a coaches instructions for race strategies, theres probably some truth to that as someone else suggeated and yes, thats a trust issue. Smith ran a lot of people the wrong way, athletes, workers, competitors wanting into their meets, high school coaches etc.... New blood will be welcomed.
This was well known before he arrived. I can't recall a person who met him and felt better after having interacted. Some people suck energy from others and he was definitely one of those people.
Jed is dumb wrote:
Pollard is the biggest track fan in the world. Houlihan is from Iowa. He story is all over the place in Des Moines.
There is 0% chance that Houlihan being coached by Schumacher who was coached decades earlier by Smith has anything to do with Smith being fired.
Follow along. The earlier poster said that the AD was not following the story. Jed merely pointed out that the AD is a huge track fan who obviously knows all about the American record holder who is from Iowa. He said nothing about a connection to the firing.
messi wrote:
Dr. Coleman wrote:
I was always curious if Smith even tried to tell Kiptoo to not take races out in suicidal paces or at least tone it down a bit. Either he was ok with this dumb tactic or he couldn't get one of his top athletes to listen to him (also bad).
Do you think it possible that Kiptoo was burnt out by outdoor nationals?
3 events at outdoor conference; 2 events at Regionals; 2 events at NCAA's. And consider his indoor nationals/cross country nats back-to-back.
Fair?
All the more reason to not take races out at a pace you can't sustain. Athlete burn out is on the coach unless they are legit doing secret workouts on the side.
This isn't football or basketball where the coach gets axed for poor strategy leading to poor results in the playoffs. I doubt Iowa States AD cares about that.