I have a new runner who I usually ignored show a drastic improvement. Should I invest on her more ?

You're not really cut out for coaching,find your own replacement, and get a new side hustle.

Give her credit stand back and be humble. Ask her what she needs to continue thriving. She did it without you, what can YOU learn?

Her current training plan appears to be working better than what you are doing with the rest of the team. Why mess it up?

Why so? It’s not so surprising that coaches focus on a more promising runners.

The thing you should be investing in is a new coach for your school and to find a different hobby.

Coaching sounds like it’s not a good fit for you, and you seem to not be offering a great experience to your athletes except for maybe the ones you like.

You should start with fantasy leagues before actually coaching.

I've never heard of a coach asking random people if he should invest effort into an athlete. If you can't invest in all your athletes, you are not a coach, and never will be.

I understand how this makes me seem like a bad coach but you can’t expect all my 15 girls to receive optimal coaching. I always give tips but I have 7 top girls I focus on, those are who I give majority of my coaching. But I always acknowledge and support all my girls. But this athlete who was new always walked during practice and did crappy warmups. I attempted to keep her engaged but I realized there’s no matter in giving effort considering she doesn’t even score for our team. Trust me I tried. She didn’t give good improvement before this race. That’s why I gave up on her. But I can assure you I attempt to support all my athletes. There’s different level of coaching and support depending on the athlete level.

It would be hard to invest in all 15 girls. There’s always a different level of engagement, determination, talent, and commitment in all of them. Why would they all receive the same investment? Image if you are a coach with a 15:25 5k guy and 30 minute 5k guy. Would you give these two guys the same level of coaching and investment ?

Like I said, you're not cut out for coaching.

Again, find a new passion.

This sounds rude but you are not a good coach and your mentality is actually awful for team growth and a healthy team culture. There are plenty of people that would kill for the opportunity to coach 15 athletes and would focus on making sure every single one is getting as much as they can out of it. If you are not one of those people please stop coaching at the highschool level. A passionate coach that does it for the kids and not to stroke their miserable ego would be so happy to replace you, and would do a better job than you.

Troll post

I try to treat all my athletes equally. Sometimes my favorite athletes to work with aren’t even on varsity. Its not just about making them faster but better humans. Take a kid who is running a 5k in 45min (aka walking mostly) and get then under 30min is pretty cool I think. Some of these kids turn into life long athletes or runners because of their high school experience. You never know either how much a kid will improve. I had a 22/23min freshman boy one year in XC that was a state champ his senior year.

This runs counter to every introductory youth coaching clinic probably ever written. Even the ones that are only common sense and you learn nothing from. (Apparently you could have learned something.) You cannot actually determine who the “top” athletes are at the age you are coaching. Your role is to help ALL of the athletes develop. The years will tell who the top athletes are, not this fall’s stop watch.

One of the best replies I've ever read anywhere. Ace perspective.

dude u suck.stop using the word negligible. ur "optimal" coaching probably sucks.

Looks like a load of replies got deleted but no trace

As much as this is a troll attempt I have seen plenty of bad coaches like this.

Why don't you tell her the same?

That she made nice progress recently and maybe she wants to see where this progress leads.

If she decides to give it a chance, at least you know that she puts some effort.