HOKA NAZ Elite plans to more than double its team size to 30 and include track runners, Alan Culpepper hired as new coach

great investment by hoka. the team needs a refresh.

Kudos for breaking this story!

Poo on the idiotic hater trolls who came on here saying Rosario was being “let go” or “fired.” You barely got half the story right, you don’t know dick so just STFU from now on.

NAZ posted it on Twitter hours ago.

Props to HOKA for the big investment. Will be interesting to see who they end up recruiting. The whole team kind of needs a big refresh.

Alan puts those shoes on he'll be ten feet tall.

Culpepper is a great choice. Very logical as they were w adidas in the same era. Hoka needs to improve the quality and performance of the shoe line otherwise Alan will have limited success. Stop pretending the carbon X is special. Redesign the plate so it actually propels the athletes. Get back to true innovation , like Nico Mermoud had done w Hoka initially.

Wasn't there a thread on here just today about Culpepper going to Texas?

This sounds like a great set of changes. Sounds like they got athlete input too. Excited for how NAZ elite will do as they round out their team

Who has Culpepper coached successfully?

Himself? He did not significantly improve on the track after he left Colorado and never came close to getting the most out of himself. He was a 3:39 guy in college and never broke 13:25. He ran his marathon PB in his first attempt at the distance. His wife? He tried to copy Hudson's workouts and she got worse.

He is not an intellectually curious guy. The bit in the front page article about pestering people in Zurich is crap, he never raced in Europe.

The group obviously needed to move on from Rosario, but the only improvement I see with Culpepper is that he won't just bluntly destroy people. He's got a winning smile and a PR-friendly quote or two, but he is not that sharp. More Cragg than Ritzenhein.

If you are going to rip Alan, can you at least be factual?

In addition to WCs in Seville and Paris and an Olympics in Athens, tilastapaja reveals he raced in Europe at least 6 other times: 1998 Stocholm, 1999 Barcelona, 1999 Malmo, 1999 Hechtel, 2005 London, 2005 Bislett. And an Olympics in Sydney which I know isn't in Europe.

I have a long time friend who has known Alan since his HS days. He said they often talked training theory. If Alan wasn't into training theory, then why in the hell would he not run on his own HS team his senior year and why in the hell would he coach himself for most of his career?

So you're saying that the anecdote about Zurich is a fabrication, as he appears to never have raced there?

The 2005 races were a last ditch attempt to run a good 5000 at the end of his career, and perhaps should not count, but even if you count them that's six European races across a nine year track career. That's a season for many guys, let alone an entire career. He famously shut up shop after USAs and never hit the circuit to really test himself. You were around and you know that was the rub on him.

Culpepper didn't run for his high school team and coached himself because he was self absorbed, inflexible, and thought he knew better than everyone else. He ran 3:39 at Big 8s and 13:31 at Mt SAC his senior year of college, and only got marginally better. The fact that his first marathon was his best is really damning. He was not open to new information or really anything that pushed him outside of his comfort zone. The antithesis of Bob Kennedy and their results tell the tale.

What they need is a shoe refresh

Why did Gault feel the need to write this:

”Culpepper fits a similar profile to two other recent pro group head coaching hires, Dathan Ritzenhein of the On Athletics Club and Alistair Cragg of Puma Elite Running. All three are white men who were accomplished college and professional athletes”

ALL THREE ARE WHITE MEN…. Why would you make that point and not elaborate or go into more detail? Dis Culpepper take the job of a POC or Two Spirit Person ? really weird to just throw that in there. Crazy actually.

Why would Gault just say: all three we’re successful college and professional runners? Why did he feel the need to say they were white men? like that somehow gave them an advantage in college or professional running? Has it given them an advantage in coaching? Last time I checked the white guys were the ones at a disadvantage in our sport lol 🤡

According to people in EP, AC was coached by a guy named Sam Walker while in high school at Coronado. The consensus on Walker was that "he'll run you into the ground." Seems like the type to run kids hard to get them a scholarship and leave them toasted going into college.

That was a really odd thing to say. Out of all the things he could have said that's what popped up in his head? Please tell me that was auto-correct gone wild.

All the changes in the world will not matter much until they design better racing shoes. They need to triple their R and D budget.

Time will tell. Hoka's athletes have been wearing the company's new prototype at recent races.

Now we know where Cruz culpepper will run after college