Portland State fires coach after costing steepler chance to make nationals

Ok I’ve seen discussion on this a couple of times and there’s always something that bothers me about it. For transparency I’m a current D1 Head XC coach.

It’s not hard to hit the sports sponsorship standard. They clearly have the budget. A quick look at TFRRS shows they competed in 20 different indoor/outdoor meets. And yet they didn’t hit the sports sponsorship standard. Their coach got cute and sent small groups of athletes to a bunch of different meets probably for “training reason” or different “competition fields”. Doing that is fine but being a head coach is doing that and hitting the sports sponsorship standard. It’s that simple. It’s oversight and ignorance mixed with incompetence that resulted in that kid not being able to compete. It falls on the coach.

I’m not putting my athletes in the best position if I’m not making sure we hit basic NCAA rules. My final rant is that this seems to be more common with programs that are primarily distance. So when I see that as a distance coach it’s frustrating because the coach is overthinking distance training/racing. It’s not that deep. Pick the meets you want your kids to run fast, pick the ones you want to use as training, build a plan and move on. You can build in those small meets for things that come up but keep the basic plan simple. It’s not complicated

Rumored to be on the short list for hires:

1. Rhonda - makes sense to promote but not sure she is even on the staff any longer

2. Priscilla Bayley (free agent)

3. Jordan’s LaSavage (Seattle asst)

4. Laura Harmon (asst distance WSU)

5. Shayla Houlihan (asst distance UCSB)

6. Carl Rose (elite sub-elite coach)

You mean your short list? Rumored, sure you just thought of all those.

Ok 1 and 6 are speculative hopefuls but the others are confirmed from two sources. One source knows 1 of them from a previous job stint and the other is a mentor to the other three.

I don't believe Shayla or Laura would ever downgrade to PSU.. Makes no sense and they'd be making less money at the poverty program of PSU.

Agreed. I was a volunteer assistant for a bit when Josh was there and he was a really good coach. To me it seemed like he should have been the head coach based on the amount of work he did. He had long-term plans for the program to improve, so I was a little disappointed that he left but also can totally understand wanting to go to the University of Oregon because of the prestige and (likely) higher pay.

Carl Rose? I had to google this person. That is a joke right? And I’m a hopeful for the Phoenix Suns head coaching job.

Takes away any credibility of your supposed insider info.

what does this coaching position pay?

Sounds like someone is worried they might not be qualified enough to get the job to me

The only way Carl Rose is a candidate is if Carl Rose imagines it so.

Isn’t everyone saying WSU coaching staff is on the outs, maybe she will have to move and it’s a relatively close job and as terrible as PDX is it seems an upgrade from Pullman!?

I'm amazed Chris Reed, the former Seattle Pacific distance coach who just quit since his wife got a job with one of the major shoe companies hasn't been mentioned.

Portland State wouldn't have to pay relocation costs.

You think a last place D2 bro is ready for PSU!? only serious comments please. I vote Harmon. She is primed for a HC job and won't have to move too far.

The reality is- Josh ruined this job for everyone. He was so damn good and if admins think they can replicate that they are mistaken. I like Harmon, but that's a pipe dream. Most people understand that this job is a career killer and while there was a unicorn named Josh- there likely won't be much else out there once the lead candidates hear about the budget cuts funding cuts, and desire to get the hell out of D1 when the S hits the fan.

Bayley is an obvious choice as she is very experienced and well liked. She took over Calpoly's program after the passing of coach Conover and they had some success.

Harmon might be hard to lure away.

Houlihan is another attractive candidate and is not well compensated. Plus SB is expensevice as hell to live, so she might make the move. but is quite well compensated, so I don't think she will leave UCSB.

You come across as a complete d!ck.

As someone who is a head cross country coach and assistant track coach, I completely agree with you on this one. Our roster looks very similar to Portland State and we don't go to 20+ different meets to give all these different distance athletes a shot a running fast times or training avenues. We pick 1-2 big indoor meets and 2-3 big outdoor meets to go to and run fast. If you can't run fast at those, that is an individual problem not a team problem. I think that kind of program thinking is what is wrong with track and field. There needs to be more team scored meets and athletes need to learn how to compete. Most of the personal bests that I see from runners is when the are more focused on being competitive than worrying about hitting perfect splits in a time trialed "race".

Hi Dave

So the overriding problem (in your opinion), is the fact that over the years the sport of T&F has lost most of it's audience here in the US... and the fact that the athletic scholarship structure established by the NCAA allows teams to specialize in specific event groups within track... because that is really why there aren't more team scored meets.