Jim Spivey leaving Valderbilt

Go dores wrote:

Same with a school like Duke.

Duke = few men's scholarships

Spivey's experience has not translated to any kind of success. The program is no better than it was when he came to Vanderbilt. You can't argue this point, unless you're pointing to standards other than athletic ones.

Unit 5 wrote:

Spivey's experience has not translated to any kind of success. The program is no better than it was when he came to Vanderbilt. You can't argue this point, unless you're pointing to standards other than athletic ones.

he was pretty successful @ U. of Chicago - the job he had before Vandy. Granted it was a D3 school, but his girls ran pretty well. And talk about a school with insane academics!

Vandy has a great outdoor track, it is a multi-million dollar mondo track. So I do not think that the program is under funded, at least when it comes to athletic facilities.

I believe there were a few Vandy women who were individual SEC champs (or contenders) under Spivey.

UM,OK. And how have they done as a TEAM at SEC XC over the years? Have they done any better under Spivey than his predecessor? How do they compare to other academic schools like Wake Forest and Duke?

Junior Spivey sucked when we let him go!

They may have the $ for facilities but how much scholarship money do they have?

Vandy just seems like a natural for XC success. I wish they'd improve on both the men's and women's side.

Ok, I'll throw Duke out since they are not equally funded and will stick to the Ivy league. Could you please tell me, Perspective, why Ivy league womens teams can recruit better and be significantly stronger nationally than the men?

Vandy women are fully funded and have great facilites, only missing an indoor track but outdoor track is great. The women have improved under Spivey but only marginally. They used to frequently be in the bottom half of the sec, but now are always in the top half, so on average they are 2-3 spots higher in the sec pecking order under Spivey. Nothing incredible but improvement nonetheless. Spivey has brought in stronger distance recruits no doubt but has had a very hard time keeping them healthy at the same time. He has coached two sec champions I believe, Kylene Kownerko (steeple, brought in by old coach) and Erica Schneble in the 5k in 2004 (his recruit). You cannot say that the team hasnt improved at all under Spivey. The womens program has potential to be really strong, if Duke or Wake can field nationally competitive programs, Vandy can too especially given the funding. Mens team however has no scholarships and is poorly funded.

Is he leaving? Nobody has answered the question.

front page second article

thanks

Actually, even before Spivey Vanderbilt would occasionally finish in the top 1/2 of the conference. I'm not seeing much of a difference. Also embarrassing was the team's performance during the SEC Track Meet, which Vanderbilt hosted. I don't recall a single distance runner scoring a point.

I had a HS runner for her sr year in both indoor and outdoor track (4:44 1500M). She got a partial ride to Vandy the year before Spivey arrived. They had a very good coach at the time who was forced to resign when after he pushed to hard for more money for the women's program.

Shepard took over the coaching for Track that year. She was unimpressive. My athlete ended-up with two stress fractures at the end of XC (Shepard kept telling her they were shin splints and to suck it up). She was didn't run the indoor season and was into about a week or two of running during the last regular meet of the outdoor season when Shepard entered into the 1500M to "be an inspiration for the rest of the team". Shepard is also born again and is very critical of what the girls read and the music they listened to.

Shepard also hired Spivey. I was hopeful that he'd make things right. However, he was unimpressive as well. Spivey recruited some real talent but with one or two exceptions, didn't do much with them. Some of them never made it through the program and ended-up dropping.

Spivey's claim to fame is he was one of the countries best mid-distance runners. Unfortunately, this doesn't translate into being a great coach.

and he was very cool back-in-the-day, with the definitely coolest looking hair of the early 80s international running scene.

great athletes are in rare cases great coaches

spivey ran like 40 miles a week and trained in Chicago when he was running low 330's and at the end of his career ran 13:15, he had some insane talent.

At the Asics convention I found Spivey a good speaker although a bit quirky. I looked up to him when I was in high school watching him race in the Olympic Trials, on the UCLA Track at invites and at the sports arena when I was in the same warm area as him as I was racing a high school 4X800 race.

I felt let down when I met him face to face, having thought so highly of him for years. He seemed cold and standoffish in person, when Steve Scott and Deena Drossin Coach(The DR.) were so cool and friendly in person. Maybe I just seemed like a some fan to him, but he was kinda laconic with me.

I had the opportunity to run for Spivey at Vandy. I ran for Spivey during our 2001-2002 campaign. He helped us get one of our few SEC champs that year. He has lifted the XC and distance teams tremendously. It is true that the program has suffered from injury over the last couple of years. The program would have done better despite the injuries. I refuse to say anything derogatory. Spivey is a great recruiter!!! He has convinced alot of athletes to walk-on and compete well!!! It is true that the Academic standards are very high. Please remember that Vandy is the ONLY private school in the SEC. Vandy's standards exceed those of other SEC institutions (bottom line). The tuition is approx. $40,000 per year. With a limited number of scholarships, many or most of the athletes have partial scholarships leaving parents to carry the burden. It must be extremely difficult to convince top talent to pay part of a $40,000/year tuition and run for Vandy when she can easily go to a public school for free or little cost. Without slandering Vandy, I will say I would like to see the university see the Track program as a Priority!!!! For your questions, I visited the site today and Spivey's bio has already been removed so it is safe to say he will no longer be a coach there.

i was lucky enough to have Spivey as a coach before hos UoC days. he is an excellent coach and i learned a lot from him. i'd be lucky to have him as a coach again.