Mike Smith interview about his Olympians, why he is staying at NAU and what’s the deal with Bosley

Most insightful interview I have read all year. Thank you for the share. Mike Smith is the man.

really good interview. I wonder what pro runners he's turned down coaching. I bet some good ones. I was thinking Grant Fisher, who does a lot of training in Flagstaff and like Woody, is independent and probably doesn't need a lot of hand holding.

I know it's been reported in the transfer portal thread but getting Churchill and Carlson as transfers is insane for their team.

Another legit top stick and another possible depth piece for the 5th-7th spot. A truly loaded team per the interview. Not sure they have any chance to break the 36 point all time record, but they are certainly looking like the OKST of the women's side this year.

Also interesting that they mentioned they've turned down college transfers that could have made a difference for them if the coaching staff didn't think they fit with the culture. I wonder who they could have turned down.

Just when I start to think Mike Smith is overrated, I click on the latest interview with him, and go back to thinking he’s pretty smart and likeable.

On paper, he seems like he spouts Yoda wisdoms. (I can‘t do Yoda talk, but y‘know how he talks about the ideal of „running for the team and not for yourself“? or the bit about teaching life lessons in the disguise of running.)

But then he goes and gives another interview and really doesn‘t seem like some clown with a pocketful of beautiful ideas. He‘s right there turning in his receipts just like every other working person. I like that image!

In the end, I cannot dislike Mike Smith. He has an accent from nowhere and I still can‘t find anything to dislike!

What the heck is a mechanics issue? Seriously other than an injury who starts moving differently?

What does this even mean??

"OK, Drew Bosley. This is a weird one. I mean, he’s as good as they come, one of the best of the best. He’s not hurt. He’s just not moving correctly. And if we trained him, he’d get hurt.
FRN: His mechanics?
Smith: Yup. His form is off. If we’d run him through this, he’d get serious bone injuries. It’s a matter of undoing this mess. It really came about over the winter break – 7 months ago. … He did limited racing indoors, but I said, outdoors, you are not pushing through this. He’s getting it going against this summer. He doesn’t have cross country eligibility, but he’s got indoors and outdoors. It’ll be December when he gets going, that first BU (Boston) meet."

I agree he has done an excellent job of continuing the tradition. Another decade and he will be in the talk with Eric Heins.

Maybe similar to what was wrong with Beamish? I know he said he had all sorts of mechanical issues, and his body would hold up fine for a month or two (long enough for him to get into NCAA title shape), but before long he'd get hurt again. I remember something about him landing too far up on his toes but that may be something different.

I know Rupp had mechanical issues after he got injured around like 2017(?) that came from one of his legs being weaker than the other, so his body compensated by changing his form. It let him run on it temporarily, but after a while it caused other issues that took a long time to fix.

It seems really weird that his form changed so suddenly during winter break. Or did Smith just mean that's when it became an issue? He puts a lot of Nico's newfound kick down to mechanical breakthroughs so I'm inclined to trust he knows what he's saying. The issue is just that I don't know what he's saying.

Edit also the article is really good ty op

This is actually one of the most striking parts of the interview to me. Smith stands out among college coaches for several reasons, but the emphasis on mechanics is particularly distinctive. Besides his contributions to cleaning up Nico's form, he mentions in an LRC interview the notion of

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Mike Smith Q&A on the Greatness of Galen Rupp

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to correct imbalance and generate force. Bosley, if I had to guess, probably had some visible imbalances that resulted in stress to high-risk areas (i.e. femoral neck, anterior tib, just spitballing here). He could probably complete any given workout, but was loading the wrong way so that he couldn't complete/recover from successive workouts. Again, my interpretation

What's cool to me is that many coaches just prescribe heaps of threshold work, long tempos, etc; Smith includes high volumes of 200s/300s/400s in order to build and maintain a secure foundation for the aerobic "house." Many coaches would similarly encourage a talent like Bosley to push through because hey, it looks great for their program to have another NCAA All-American and Trials qualifier. Admittedly, it bears mention that there's never further discussion as to what could have thrown Bosley's form in the first place...Still, NAU is really process-oriented and the results almost always follow in due time; here's hoping Drew finally puts together the track season he's capable of next spring

stupid hyperlink stole my original text: "the notion of getting Rupp economical"

If you sit in an awkward position for too long while studying you can alter the alignment of your spine. This would alter your movement pattern when running.

Fits with having happened “over the winter break”.

Doesn’t Bosley have under a 3.25 gpa as he’s never made any academic teams? As a journalism major at NAU?

the transfer portal answer was really telling in how much Smith covets overall team chemistry over immediate success. in all these years they've only gotten 2 men, Las Heres and Kutche, both dependable middle of the road, 3 and 4 runners. pretty sure Smith could stockpile his team with low sticks if he really wanted but it would hurt overall perception of his program and also recruiting.

If I was a recruit I'd think twice about committing to a school knowing at any moment they'd be replaced by a new crop of ringers every season just to fill up the coaches trophy case.

the women's team, on the other hand, hasn't done much historically and is still figuring out their identity so it makes sense Smith is more open to outsiders joining. though don't be surprised if they ever go on a run like NC State you see them dial back on the transfers.

Bosely appears to drive his arm down like a skier quite a bit to propel off the ground. I don't know if that is related to what Smith is talking about.

I think this interview was so underwhelming.

Obviously he's a great coach and the notion that he can't coach middle distance is greatly exaggerated. But when asked about details he always name drops Dan Pfaff and then speaks in huge generalities.

I really think he's trying hard to learn speed training but this year it was just assigning random fast workouts at extremely random times (during indoor track???) and the results were really inconsistent.

Nico definitely peaked early (Smith admitted in the interview), Sahlman clearly peaked too early, many of the women had injuries, and 3 of his pros battled injuries all year - his wife, Woody, and Luis.

I don't know what could be so wrong with Bosley's form where he is practically untrainable and unraceable?? Like everyone has a couple kinks in their form and Drew's is practically perfect. odd.

The reporter misgendered Hiltz.

This guy is a much better coach than Jerry