UF Coach Used to be a BIG DEAL

I know US News is a scam, but how did UF get up to #29 nationally in its latest college rankings? That's a scam in and of itself.

UF-#5 State University. Several reasons it has moved up the rankings. First, the State of Florida offers students with strong HS grades and SAT or ACT scores free tuition (Bright Futures) so many student who could attend top schools anywhere in the country stay in-state (except for my kids, ugh!!!). Second, State of Florida has a prepaid college tuition plan that allows you to lock in tuition at the current price when your kids are infants. Third, lots of out of state students want to come to UF for the warm climate. Fourth, UF has been successful in attracting many top professors from top institutions who want to come to a warm climate and they bring in a lot of $ in research dollars. Lastly, great athletics across the board which attracts those students who want the rah rah of a top college athletic program.

Seeing as how Solinsky's position is the distance/cross coach you didn't need to mention it.

Yes, I think it went over a few peoples head on this thread.

Why not, though? Frank Shorter became a distance-running god out of Gainesville, didn't he? From what I can tell he would have been there from 1969 or 1970, for at least four years. (He got his J.D. from UF in 1974, and he graduated from Yale in 1969. Oh, and in the middle of that time period he won the Olympic marathon.)

en.wikipedia.org

Frank Shorter

Frank Charles Shorter (born October 31, 1947) is an American former long-distance runner who won the gold medal in the marathon at the 1972 Summer Olympics and the silver medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics. His Olympic success...

Link:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Shorter

So unless the climate is crazy different now (ok, it is probably hotter), it seems unlikely that it'd be a bad place to train.

It’s not a bad place to train. Lots of hilly dirt roads right outside town. Great facilities. Yeah, the summer weather in Gainesville can be pretty tough (Shorter BTW often did not stick around during summer), but so is winter training in Madison Wisconsin. That didn’t stop Schumacher from attracting top talent.

The main reason is just that recruiting national class distance talent has not been a priority. Even in-state really. When I was there, we had guys only getting book money who had been offered a full ride at FSU. Braman spreads his resources more evenly, while Mouse is almost all in on jumps and sprints.

Saw this thread and spent a few minutes looking over their rosters. Looks like they could be starting to invest a little more in distance? Relatively high number of fairly talented underclassmen might indicate that they’re planning something. Nothing crazy, but better than I was expecting to see for UF. Could also just be that typical DI burnout has yet to hit the roster, but who knows.

Not that Florida will cease to be a sprint/jumps powerhouse anytime soon, but CS has been there a few years now and they might be starting to trust him a little more. Valby got second in the 5k last year coming off injury which probably indicates some good coaching. Chris could bring solid recruits in off limited success given his star power and Holloway probably cares more about points that he does about being a “sprint school”. I’m biased as a distance runner, but I think there’s an opportunity for them to score points there in the SEC for sure and maybe even beyond. Might be smart to figure out something a little different rather than waiting around for Texas et all to figure out how to beat them at their own game. Especially with Joe gone. He basically won it single handed last year. Obviously they’re never going full distance, but now I’m interested to see what that program does in the next few years.

Dude, you don't even know the half of it. This guy is one of the most courageous leaders in the world, in addition to his lesser-known running exploits.

Florida is hugely improved in recent years in distance talent, which should help UF, but they've got to keep that talent in-state, and just this year, the male and female state xc record holders both chose to leave for the West Coast (Oregon and Stanford).