Doug Soles coaches Herriman UT now

Probably because of the athletes' parents in most cases.

Don't let facts get in the way of some jealous coach trying to rationalize why they can't get those results...

tim'-pah-no'-gus

I guess anointing Herriman and Soles as the best in our Utah was a bit premature

Look, Doug Soles gets great results out of his High School athletes. Indisputable.

But at what cost? He overtrains them, they peak in High School, and don't do crap in college. This is also indisputable.

He has had ZERO college success stories - the GO alumni he mentions to justify his methods represent just a few athletes that didn't fall off performance-wise as badly as most of his do. But none of the GO standouts have gone on to any level of collegiate success that matches or exceeds their HS performances.

No smart college coach will recruit a Doug Soles-coached kid with any hopes of further developing them. You might get a couple more decent years out of them, but that's it. Look at Destiny Collins for example - super talented and great performances in HS, but nothing left in the gas tank after 4 years of Doug Soles over working her.

He's looking out for himself, not the long-term success of his athletes. If that's what people want to praise, fine, but I disagree. I think he's self-centered, arrogant and a bad coach when you take the big, long-term perspective into view.

And no, I am not a HS or college coach, so please don't accuse me of being a jealous competitor.

And smeared in your babbling whatever you want to call it is rash assumptions that losers do on Lets Run. Who cares how many didn't make it in college? Soles offers a quality product for all high school athletes on his team that makes people jealous and more stimulating that what most college programs can offer. That's a fact. You ever seen his teams? I'm from his area so I've seen them up close. They are a social scene to be on with presented goals to chase and this means even making varsity or the opportunity to travel to an awesome summer camp if they do well in the summer time trial or whatever other trips are planned for that year. Team dinners. All-comers meets for all athletes. Other events. Going to run in college would probably seem like a complete let down for what is offered and I know for a fact some of his athletes simply were not into in college running as they were in high school. Other athletes simply do not want to run at all anymore either. Why is that so hard to imagine? It's really not that difficult. Is it to be assumed people are to run competitively forever? They are on to different things. That's it. They are not burned out. Interests and life goals change.

A truly good coach inspires a love into a sport that stands unrivaled in all other pursuits. If Doug doesn’t have successful alumni, that is on him. The caliber of teams he has produced over the years on paper should have the desire and skill to compete in higher levels. If this isn’t happening a large portion of the blame should go to Doug.

So if truly good high school teachers such as a science teacher does not have students go on to become accomplished scientists, a large portion of the blame goes on them? Face facts...Soles can only control what he can control. He is a very motivating guy who puts in a lot of time and works damn hard. Many college coaches would not put in the effort Soles does. I would love to hear you people who conveniently use the word burnout pick up some of Soles's or any coach accused of burning athletes out after high school and see what you can do with them. Better yet, I would like to see what you guys could do with them starting in 9th grade.

A couple of my former fairly-well accomplished hs athletes attend the same university. One has stopped competing for the college team; one continues to run and is doing well. Individual interests change. This is fine.

I was at the meet, herriman just had a bad day. Weather was bad, race was pretty tactical, a few guys just had a bad day.

Its really not that deep. I still think Herriman is going to make a good showing at their regional and national races as the year goes on. Even a 4th place result is super impressive for just 6ish months of the new training.

My opinion on the college stuff: if Doug can bring his athletes to their maximum potential, which gives them the opportunity to run in college for a good program, why not? If a 14:50 HS guy only goes on to run 14:35 in college, why is that seen as a failure? It’s not like he would’ve ran better in college if he was undertrained in highschool, that’s not how that works. If that same guy was undertrained he may have ran 16-something and maybe not have even had the opportunity to run in college.

Utah doesn’t have a lot of options for collegiate running if you aren’t a top athlete in a strong state, a handful of fairly competitive to top caliber D1s, a solid Juco, and a weak and severely overpriced D2. Not a lot of options if you aren’t at least all state XC or very strong on the track.

weather was bad but all teams have to go through it, not just Herriman

Correct, but bad weather ups the chances of a bad performance. Not to discredit the teams that beat them, but my point is that sometimes you are just going to get unlucky with how your body wants to race that day. Herrimans depth and fitness is undeniable, really just an example of a few guys all having a bad day.

I'm not sure why so many people come to Soles' defense when it comes to his former athletes' ability to improve in college. Some will argue that the level of success they had @ GO was worth it despite the fact that very few did anything after. Others will say that college coaches aren't good enough at developing athletes, and he's just That good. I have actually talked to one of his former athletes who was a sophomore girl (at the time) who described her training to me. I'm guessing she was running somewhere around 75-80mpw w/ a long run and 3 hard days. She was a 12:00 3200m runner. Please explain to me how this is an appropriate amount of training for a HS girl at that age and how it would help her long term development. He's a great motivator, puts together some great training.. but should probably move up to college, where athletes can physiologically handle that type of workload.

You are not guessing when you say a 12:00 3200m runs 75-80 mpw. You are spreading rumors. He runs different training groups and there's no way this girl was in his top group running 12 flat. Or was she more like 12:30? Their athletes have told me the top athletes run 60-70 and it drops off from there so you are off on your assumption. And some of those were easy morning runs in their before school PE class. You wanna see a routine that people could argue was tougher than Great Oak's...check out Arcadia's back when they were buzz sawing their way to CA state titles and NXN podium finishes.

I can name a handful of former GO athletes that have flat out stated they have ZERO respect for Doug and the way he ran the program. The man was clearly not liked, respected and snuffed the love of running for many of his athletes.

I remember hearing in an interview where he said that there were once 200 kids who were interested in going out for GO XC so he had to implement the standards that year to see if anyone should get cut

That's true

Why do they have ZERO respect for Doug? What did they recommend to make things better that was research based? Did they not want to be on an elite team? Maybe they have wanted to take the easy path to get there? I've had many kids that would say the same thing about me, because I made them come to practice everyday. Kids are kids and many have little to no reasoning if they don't get their way. Could many of Doug's former athletes do a better job than him? Tell them to line up and become a high school coach, because apparently they are experts at creating a national caliber program and maintaining the fair competitive culture from within that takes to stay there. This is high school drama crap you are bringing here attempting to create a narrative. Name names next time. And how many of Doug's former athletes and their parents would line up and vouch for the guy? A LOT of them and you have to look no further than the people that came to support him when he left.