Running is far more dependent on talent than it is on coaching

I resent that. I was the #1 on my high school team. I was 5,6,7 on my College team.

Wait… so UCLA sucked because of talent? Oh yea duhbrah

All this is absurd. No one here even has any semblance of a definition of talent. No evidence whatsoever is given for the claim. Newbury Park is the best evidence you can find that coaching matters a great deal. Coaches all across the country have access to training programs that work, but only one coach now dominates the all-time lists for 3k and all-time teams. NP didn't all of a sudden get better talent than all of the other high schools in the country combined, yet they beat all of the field combined at RunningLane. He raised expectations dramatically and trained his athletes harder and wiser. It's the same reason on a lower level that Harriman (UT) became so good with Soles after he did it at Great Oak. Coaching matters enormously. It won't take just anyone to the podium, but it will elevate everyone much more, particularly in a sport like distance running.

When it comes to talent, coaches surely don’t need to re-invent the wheel. For the more gifted runners they really just need consistency and a solid foundation, but it’s really all relative. I know a kid who peaks at 65 over the summer then barely breaks 50 after XC and he runs 3:50 for 1500. Then you have guys who grind out the miles and run almost as fast but with twice the mileage under them all year. Coaches really just need to know their athletes and what each individual needs; then make training adjustments accordingly. The worst coaching mistakes are when they turn their programs into meat grinders, where some guys make it through and others can’t stay healthy.

A good coach can take great kids and make a good team. A great coach can take good kids and make a great team.

Bad coaching can easily screw up runners and ruin a talented team.

I am not sure this is entirely true. I know several examples of hard working, never-take-a-day off, all-in, blue-collar runners who just trained stupidly. They worked super hard but never really learned how to maximize their potential and lost to similarly talented but better coached athletes.

I think a lot of younger posters on this thread, the ones who are saying coaching doesn't matter, haven't been injured, exhausted, or over-trained yet.

I ran too low of mileage when I was in college (and listened to bad 90s advice about "just run tons of all-out intervals instead of junk miles") and then later, I flipped the script and ran a tons of miles but my workouts were basically non-existent. Now that I am in my third, middle-aged, phase of running, I tend to never skip a day and run through injuries (until I can't).

Obviously, if I had a good coach, someone would have spotted these bad habits, none of which were causes by "not working hard enough." I have alternately done too many intervals, too many miles, and run too often when tired, sick, and dinged up. Hard work, for a lot of distance runners, is exactly what a good coach can harness. Without a good coach, I think a lot of people just become addicted to the training (in whatever form) or quit after their first injury or setback.

Talent has been well defined by several posters on this thread: either you are fast without training (talent #1) or you respond very dramatically to training (talent #2); both of those definitions of talent are not really controversial.

Whether NP has more or less of that on their team than the rest of the entire county is pretty obvious. They don't. That said, they have a confluence of talent, teammates, coaching, and opportunity. Those factors don't always line up in one place at one time.

So far, this thread has failed to address how helpful it is in high school to have someone to train with (or race in the same league meets) with who is also an elite level talent. Maybe having someone awesome to train with every day is just as important as good coaching?

Coaching matters...as a high schooler in the mid 80's my track coaches idea of training was 400m reps every session maybe a few 800's. I floundered my junior year placing DFL in mile. My senior year looked up a private coach I heard about in the newspaper found his number in phone book and asked if he would coach me. Well won 2 state titles and scholarship to Div 1 school. Bad coaching can destroy talent.

Win post/reply.

by xycv…. Win post/reply

All this is absurd. No one here even has any semblance of a definition of talent. No evidence whatsoever is given for the claim. Newbury Park is the best evidence you can find that coaching matters a great deal. Coaches all across the country have access to training programs that work, but only one coach now dominates the all-time lists for 3k and all-time teams. NP didn't all of a sudden get better talent than all of the other high schools in the country combined, yet they beat all of the field combined at RunningLane. He raised expectations dramatically and trained his athletes harder and wiser. It's the same reason on a lower level that Harriman (UT) became so good with Soles after he did it at Great Oak. Coaching matters enormously. It won't take just anyone to the podium, but it will elevate everyone much more, particularly in a sport like distance running.

You are wrong when you say Newbury Park didn't all of the sudden get better talent. Prior to Brosnan showing up, they had a grand total of ONE single kid who ran sub 5:00 in middle school on their roster and he was a there just one year before Brosnan showed up. After Brosnan showed up, the second year, they had 11 kids that ran sub 5:00 in middle school, several under 4:50, including what turned out to be the two most talented families in high school history.

As someone else pointed out, there are multiple factors that contributed to the rise of NewburyPark, and quality coaching is one part of it. However, the amount of talent can not be argued. That kind of talent, training together day after day, with very supportive parents is probably a much bigger factor than coaching.

If it isn't talent, why wasn't Brosnan able to make a significant impact in 6 months of coaching at UCLA? People are now saying, well yeah, give him a chance to recruit his own kids, but I thought talent didn't matter. He should be able to coach up any group of kids and get a significant improvement in 6 months over a guy who was so bad of a coach he was fired.

Not to mention that the majority of these "talent-less" kids that attended Newbury were not zoned for Newbury and they were recruited/transferred in or whatever you want to call it.

But I'd hate for the facts to get in the way here.

And amazing if Newbury Park is good due to superior coaching that Nico Young made significant improvement in college. It almost looks like he should have been better in high school.

Opposite is true. Kids come to us with no training other than soccer and win races like everyone else is standing still. I see it every year. Coach Wiz is right.

For over 90% of sub-9:00 HSers, there is no teammate that is anywhere close to being competitive with them. German didn’t even have a 10:00 teammate. You’ve never heard of the “Loneliness of long distance runner.”? A kid that can’t do an over distance run by himself, or push in an interval workout, never had much of a future in the sport anyway.

The evidence doesnt support that claim. Anyone over 25 years old that has coached has seen scores of athletes (over the years) show up and dominate on day 1! That is at the genetic level. Coaching can kill em for sure, and can make em better by 1-5%.

Never forget a kid we had 2 years ago (14y/o)...on threshold runs, he ran all out and quit half way every time, on fast runs he got lost/couldnt find him. He literally did everything wrong you could do. 1 of 2 kids I ever had to tell them to just stand off to the side while we did off track work! Parents called in more than once. Played no other sport. All he did on race day was win 800M- 3000m! Sprint finishes, breakaways.... won every time. Even ran people down on 4 x 400 anchor. I would love to know what makes these people different. Gamma rays?

I see you working and that is true for some unique individuals over the centuries. But that doesn't seem to be true in real life. Look at the Kenyans? We talk about it all the time. As a matter of fact, the USA did just that and what we did was make a conscious effort to have these elite teams that train together. Altitude and elite teams...isnt that the biggest change in US distance running in the last 30 years?

Been saying this to my kid for 6 years and still holds true. Always taught him you better be able to train on your own cause no one will be with you.