Is this the worst high school track coach ever?

sounds about right...hs coaches are pretty bad now days. Can you offer to coach a couple days a week? The coach probably needs help and believe it or not probably WANTS help. Offer to volunteer or community coach the distance kids. This is what I did for my son's team who had an awful coach. I thought she'd be hesitant but she jumped for joy and handed me the team so she could sit in her classroom and do whatever. I did need to get some paper work, coaches clinics, and all that boring stuff done. You'd be surprised at the lack of support these coaches get. They are looking for help. He clearly doesn't know what he's doing so he may look forward to some input as well.

I would love to volunteer (and wouldn't hesitate given the opportunity), but the schedule I'm currently working makes it impossible. Which is frustrating because I want to coach collegiately someday and need to get some experience, but it would mean quitting my current job which cannot happen right now.

I laughed out loud at this part.

Glad you’re there for your brother. And he should be very proud of himself.

Oscar Ponce has gotta be worse i feel like

Where are you running 5k races for xc in high school? And where could they make cuts for xc, in high school? Is this a private school of some sort?

You could go to the coach and offer to write up an actual training program for a distance program. He clearly doesn't know what he's doing, and his training would be much more effective to a 400? meter runner. Even though that's still pretty terrible. Clearly he doesn't have a distance background. You writing up a program would let the coach not have to think about what to have the distance crew do. If he has an ego and wants to feel like he's still in control a little bit, write in a few portions that are 'coaches choice', like plyometric exercises or a variable distance of interval but make sure it's at like 3200m pace with a certain percentage rest per the distance of interval.

lmaooooo

That leaves pretty much one option for your younger brother: CLUB TEAM. However, I don't know what you could do about those other kids suffering from this idiotic training.

Um, ... ever head of "The Dizzle?"

If you are willing to coach but hampered by logistics, perhaps you could coach via a third party. If you have a likeminded friend in town, or maybe another concerned relative, see if they will volunteer to coach the distance runners and implement your training. There may actually be more people eager to get involved and help the kids, but who are held back by their ignorance about what is needed. Perhaps the parent of one of the other distance runners? PS - congrats to your brother for his weight success.

Unfortunately today, thousands of middle school and HS coaches in all event areas don't have a clue to what they are doing and that is inexcusable. There is absolutely no reason not to have some basics about the event you plan to coach. There are tons of resources available to get some basics or just speak or ask other coaches for some basic workouts for the event and time of the year.

If I were you, I would set up a meeting with the coach (away from any of the kids). The coach mostly likely has never coached the sport. Tell him your credentials and explain the progress that you had. Offer him some training basics but be respectful and let him make the decision.

What if you had him do your training earlier in the day, and when he goes to practice he just jogs in the back. Do the absolute bare minimum to stay on the team and then when races come around the coach shouldn't be able to cut him if he races well. Chances are he's not making cuts anyway if there's only 5 distance runners

If I were your brother I would quit the team and race as an independent. I know it's less than ideal but this coach sounds horrible.

really? we're complaining about under-training? if you think you can do better you just supplement the workload on your own and factor in what he's already done. i worry more about over-training as the coach will usually monitor to some degree that you are at least completing the paper workout. if not be on you with the stopwatch where it's hard to tank when you think you should.

i take the "we could have cuts" as a threat and not literal. you can push your luck on this but short of misconduct you aren't winning. if you want to compete for the school you have to figure out how to come out ahead under his silly rules, plus your own supplementation, without hurting yourself competitively.

re the time trial, you need to assess does it decide anything or not. if the time trial is meaningless, then you can tank it. it's a checkbox. you check the box slowly then on to the next thing. it's a time trial on paper but it's a half mile jog if you want. i thought my college soccer coach way overdid things, and i dialed back certain practice efforts. if i am still a starter and he can't make me do it, so what. if he benched me for it, that would be different. along those lines, if the time trial decides anything, you have to play along. we would have runoffs for relays sometimes if you got challenged. sometimes the result was backwards because someone tried too hard in practice then we got that dropped on us. but you have to play the game as it's setup.

Actually, I am worried about over-training. Running fast workouts every day is too much intensity and will lead to injuries and burnout. It is not easy to supplement when his legs are burnt out from ripping 400s every day. As for "playing the game," that isn't forming good habits. I have told him to slow it down and try to tempo the reps but its not like he's an all-american speed demon. He tempos around 7:00 and these kids are dropping the hammer and taking 10 minutes rest. And the time trial was meaningless. They are running a "time trial" every day it seems. Yesterday was a 500 time trial.

Thank you for this advice. I think this is what I am going to try and do.

Post like this make me wonder how many talented runners out there are lost to poor coaching. Imagine being a 4:10 talent but having a coach like this and never improving past like 4:55. You go from being able to run at major D1 schools to literally not being able to run in college. Guys like these will never know how good they could've been.