How's University of Michigan's women's distance program?

Honestly given the brand, facilities, and budget I think they underperform. Huge roster, huge classes, and Sully honestly meat grinds them down to a handful of all-americans every couple of years. Pretty unimpressive system if you ask me.

Coach Hopkins at UMN and the old Northwestern coach do a much better job with way less if you ask me.

Mike McGuire is a 12-time Big 10 Cross Country Coach of the Year.

mgoblue.com

Mike McGuire - Women's Cross Country Coach - University of Michigan Athletics

Associate head coach Mike McGuire enters his 36th season with the Michigan women's track and field program for the 2023-24 academic year. He has led U-M's cr...

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Maybe I'm to excited for the season and then not seeing the women on the rankings and not much performance for 5 going on 6 years. Love to see them bounce back and make Michigan proud.

I don't know their budget, but their facilities and brand are top of the top. Love to see then thrive again.

Isn't Sully the men's coach, seems he does a decent job, nothing spectacular, but a couple gems a year.

terrible

Thoughts on why? Great facilities and support along with a winning sports brand.

if you knew what sully's personality was like, it doesn't translate well to coaching

"Brand" is way overrated, especially when it comes to a sport like cross country. Just because a school is a "brand" in football or men's basketball does not mean that they will just dominate every other sport out there in the NCAA. And just because B1G and SEC teams have the biggest TV contract and think they are hot chit does not mean they "deserve" or will take over all sports. And facilities are not a big factor either for distance runners. Until you are paying cross country athletes big bucks (if ever), the budget is not a big factor either. It's mainly about the coach, and the team culture and history of success at the program. The top distance recruits are not thinking "oh I want to run at this school because they have a big brand in football or men's basketball". That's way down the totem poll of concerns. They are primarily thinking about having a good coach that can make them getter better, and a team with a good culture and tradition of success.

I disagree. Brand is big for sport and school culture. It’s the total package experience that students want. Yes, of course, they want a good team/coach and all that. But they also want to be part of something bigger. They want a good sports program overall so they have pride in wearing their school colors.

And unless they’re one of the very few who have a realistic chance of being a pro runner, they also want a school with a good academic reputation. They’ll only be on the team for 4-5 years. They’ll be alumni of the university for life. They need that degree to have value for their careers.

Of course a school with an overall winning tradition in all sports (and primarily the big sports like football and men's basketball) will help with recruiting athletes in any particular other sport. Marginally. But it's not a deciding factor. Historically speaking, look at the top women's distance programs over the last 40 years (with the most national titles) - Villanova, Stanford, BYU, NC State, Oregon. These schools didn't become women's distance powerhouses because they were football powerhouse brands. But those school's do have a brand -- a brand in women's distance specifically (among other sports).

What's uo with Sullys personality?

Yes, it’s true those schools haven’t historically had great football programs, and women care less about that than men, but there are probably other things that were appealing about those schools from a broader brand/student experience/student culture/academic reputation standpoint.

BYU is the darling of the mormans and at 4k to 5k feet of elevation, Stanford is great academically and warm year round, oregon well the state is gorgeous for running but the city is miserable looking, NC state I'm not sure. Would expect colorado to be a perennial power house with the elevation and gorgeous running scenery.

McGuire recruited my daughter a few years ago. She went elsewhere for a variety of reasons, but Mike was a total pro and really class act. Memory like a steel trap. He remembered recruiting my wife when she was in high school in the 80's and he was at Kansas. Anyway, from that angle, which is not a complete picture, or really an answer to the question, Michigan has him as an asset.

Mike McGuire is one of the best middle distance coaches in NCAA history. His record with collegiate and post collegiate athletes is impressive. I have been friends with Mike for many years and my teams have competed against his. He is a great guy, funny as heck, and a true class act. With Sullivan taking over it has caused difficulty for Coach McGuire as Sully tries to interfere. Has really screwed up the program. Just sad.

So seems like Sully is a detriment to the program? What is he doing to cause stagnation with the women's distance runners?

Excited to see how they do here tonight in their opener.

One of Sully's runners - O'Reilly from Canada - just placed 4th at World U20 in the 800m. Destroyed Watcke, who was supposedly much better than him..

But have also only heard good things about McGuire - another Canadian on the U20 team (as well as her training partner), Bertram, is going to Michigan now as a freshman, to train under Mike. Too bad they couldn't land Forsyth (from Ann Arbor), who is in the 1500 final at WU20 tomorrow (but I get why she would want to go away).

Forsyth went to Michigan State to be both her sister.

High injury rate with 18 of 36 unable to run last season (stress fractures and overuse injuries, a few surgeries) Coaching seems to spend more energy on recruiting over quality drills and warmups and monitoring overtraining. Roster limits will make it interesting.