With the insurgence of foreign runners in the NCAA, BYU win both men’s and women’s titles without any foreign athletes. What makes BYU so dominant? What is their training like? Is Provo Utah that good of a training place?
With the insurgence of foreign runners in the NCAA, BYU win both men’s and women’s titles without any foreign athletes. What makes BYU so dominant? What is their training like? Is Provo Utah that good of a training place?
1. 90% of the LDS kids want to go to BYU
2. Utah, and to a lesser degree, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, are all states that have substantial LDS populations. These states all have some great individuals each year at the high school level. BYU gets fantastic picks from these states.
3. Lifestyle, no smoking, drinking, partying
4. Lifestyle 2.0, for the BYU men specifically, once you're back from a mission, you could care less about partying or staying up super late all the time. On a mission you're in bed at 10, up at 6, for two years straight.
5. Altitude. Provo is a great place to train. Surprisingly few dirt roads and wide trails within a few miles of BYU campus, but still plenty of plain grass fields, and single track trails, as well as paved options.
6. Coaches that build athletes, then programs, then teams in that order. Ed and Diljeet both care most about the character of the athletes. Then they build up the character and culture of the program, then they build up the fitness of the team. Not that it's the same degree of dominance, but it's the same approach that Nick Saban had at Alabama for football. Any coach can buy into double threshold and good recruiting and have a top 5-10 team every few years, but you need culture to get to where BYU has gotten. That takes time to build, but they've done it.
I've been somewhat ambivalent towards BYU. I'm not Mormon, so why would I cheer for such a Mormon school? (I'm not sure if all of their runners are actually Mormon). You can't blame people for living a good, clean life, and getting there based on talent (and hopefully not EPO!)
With the insurgence of foreign runners in the NCAA, BYU win both men’s and women’s titles without any foreign athletes. What makes BYU so dominant? What is their training like? Is Provo Utah that good of a training place?
Because they get 6 yrs to develop, don’t drink alcohol or coffee and have no sex.
They don't train on missions and not all go on missions so they are not developing longer than others. They lose some development. Going on a mission causes you to lose a year of high level competition after you get back but may gain you a little with maturity your last one or two years.
With the insurgence of foreign runners in the NCAA, BYU win both men’s and women’s titles without any foreign athletes. What makes BYU so dominant? What is their training like? Is Provo Utah that good of a training place?
1. 90% of the LDS kids want to go to BYU
2. Utah, and to a lesser degree, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, are all states that have substantial LDS populations. These states all have some great individuals each year at the high school level. BYU gets fantastic picks from these states.
3. Lifestyle, no smoking, drinking, partying
4. Lifestyle 2.0, for the BYU men specifically, once you're back from a mission, you could care less about partying or staying up super late all the time. On a mission you're in bed at 10, up at 6, for two years straight.
5. Altitude. Provo is a great place to train. Surprisingly few dirt roads and wide trails within a few miles of BYU campus, but still plenty of plain grass fields, and single track trails, as well as paved options.
6. Coaches that build athletes, then programs, then teams in that order. Ed and Diljeet both care most about the character of the athletes. Then they build up the character and culture of the program, then they build up the fitness of the team. Not that it's the same degree of dominance, but it's the same approach that Nick Saban had at Alabama for football. Any coach can buy into double threshold and good recruiting and have a top 5-10 team every few years, but you need culture to get to where BYU has gotten. That takes time to build, but they've done it.
Meanwhile a guy that isn’t Mormon, can get up in morning without having gone on a mission, is much younger, doesn’t live at altitude, and is not part of competitive team, beat every single one of them today.
I see it all the time, but what does “culture” mean, exactly.
Imagine when they start recruiting Kenyans on top of all this success
Kenyan and foreign runners did not dominate today as was commonly expected around here all season.
To answer the OPs question, BYU is coached by Ed Eyestone. Except for perhaps Alberto Salazar, Eyestone has more credentials as a very successful athlete than any other coach, professional or collegiate, ever. He's been there, done that at every level.
BYU gets the bad rap of hoarding their athletes longer than other schools because the Mormon mission thing but the reality is that those are the rules and nothing actually prevents other schools from doing the same. Their top 7 graduated HS:
2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2019, 2020, 2020
25, 24, 24, 23, 23, 22, 22
Alabama, Arkansas, OSU, New Mexico, Iowa State have nearly the same average age or older.
2. Utah, and to a lesser degree, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, are all states that have substantial LDS populations. These states all have some great individuals each year at the high school level. BYU gets fantastic picks from these states.
1) You would be surprised at the number of non-athlete LDS kids that don't want to go to BYU. Still, there are a lot that want to go there and the admission standards are quite high.
2) You left off California where the two non-Utah BYU guys are from. California has a very large LDS population. Also, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming have large LDS populations for their states.
With the insurgence of foreign runners in the NCAA, BYU win both men’s and women’s titles without any foreign athletes. What makes BYU so dominant? What is their training like? Is Provo Utah that good of a training place?
Despite being older, BYU men have generally underperformed at almost every national meet prior to today. So they aren’t dominant at all really.
Imagine when they start recruiting Kenyans on top of all this success
Kenyan and foreign runners did not dominate today as was commonly expected around here all season.
To answer the OPs question, BYU is coached by Ed Eyestone. Except for perhaps Alberto Salazar, Eyestone has more credentials as a very successful athlete than any other coach, professional or collegiate, ever. He's been there, done that at every level.
BYU gets the bad rap of hoarding their athletes longer than other schools because the Mormon mission thing but the reality is that those are the rules and nothing actually prevents other schools from doing the same. Their top 7 graduated HS:
2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2019, 2020, 2020
25, 24, 24, 23, 23, 22, 22
Alabama, Arkansas, OSU, New Mexico, Iowa State have nearly the same average age or older.
Your post is spot on, except that you fail to comprehend that 3 of your top 7 are 24-25 years old, and that makes a HUGE difference.
With the insurgence of foreign runners in the NCAA, BYU win both men’s and women’s titles without any foreign athletes. What makes BYU so dominant? What is their training like? Is Provo Utah that good of a training place?
Discipline + altitude. Their way of life is extremely disciplined. Translates well to running, especially with altitude.