Coaches in America

One of the big draw backs to weather or not there are great college or post collegiate coaches is IMHO the lack of quality coaching on the High School level...many athletes are coming to college with very little running back ground and it takes time to develop the athletes...I would love to see a better program for HS coaches to learn and then for them to not fear the implementation of more volume and more intensity programs into the HS ranks...

Maybe where you live HS has not Quality coaches,but here in NM we have several Olympians and Olympic Qualifiers coaching HS.Myself,Henry Rono,Trish Porter,Josie Edwards,Brantley Lutz just a few to mention.The Albuquerque Academy is nationly ranked and has less then 1000 students.I expect our NM kids will do great in Footlocker West this year and beat some of those pamperd California kids.Keep a eye on Josh Rogers this year ,he is been coached by me for 6 months now and he should make the Footlocker West team .

Eddy Hellebuyck

Pampered CA kids??? That's not exactly correct to say that CA kids are pampered. If you call running the Mt. Sac course and the Fresno Course against top competition for 4 weeks straight "pampering kids" I think you're crazy. I'm not a CA HS coach, but I do know that they have it a bit tougher in some respects performing up to their abilities at Foot Lockers because they are "fried" from all the tough hurdles that they have to clear in the weeks leading up to Foot Locker. This doesn't have a lot to do w/ coaching so I'm going to end this here, but Eddy, think again before you group all CA kids into the "pampered" category.

Maybe you do not know what is happing every year at footlocker West . The start area is so narrow ,so they ( CA race officials )let onley 1 NM runner on the front line all the other NM runners need to be at the back in the third row.They say ( CA officials ) our kids their times are to slow to be seeded in the front row.Keep in mind we compete all year at 5500 feet and higher, and APS does not let us compete out off state.We invite every year CA schools to come to our meets ,but they are smart enough to stay home at their sweet sea level flat speedy courses.

Eddy

Vigil has done a good job with Drossin, not to mention his previous record also. Larsen with Meb. JKs approach sounds good and has worked with Weldon. Who is Runyan's coach? Tegen with Favor/Schwald.

Who else, this may get some "what?!?!" responses but KK's wife Sandra, the guy has set the marathon record twice. Scott Raczko, coached a HS kid to 3:53. Regina's husband/coach.

Kenyan (or insert any African nation that produces good runners) must have TONS of good coaches from entry level through to the international level.

Anyone else picking up on the slight bit of sarcasm? The point being what makes a good coach, results or results plus good methodology. Some coaches with good results may not be considered good coaches because of their method. I could ramble on forever on this topic, as could many, it is a tough question to answer.

As always, just my two cents....

Cospiracy theories are so beneath you Eddy. I am sure that there is some homerism going on at the Mt. SAC course, but can you blame them, that state does produce way more sub 9:10 guys, even sub 9:20, make that sub 9:30-you get the point. The odd NM kid(that makes the team) every once in a while is GREAT(Chip Smith,Chris Shurz(SP), etc) more power to them, but really year after year, they don't have the population, or the intense year-round competition that Cali does, which produces a better H.S. runner.

First off, yes, the start line at Footlocker west is attrocious, at least it was in 00 when the track was torn up and they had to start on the runway. I was in the third tier of the seeded race, and that stunk. many things influence that (like people like me wanting to run that race, a dumb decision on my part, should have run the senior race).

California runs their state meet the previous weekend, and have run every weekend for a month (league, section prelims, section finals, and then state finals) and these are not the little meets you train through. So, if you feel that your NM guys need more spots on the line, talk to Doug Speck in advance. Also, sorry to hear about another sports federation that has no clue (New Mexico i guess).

And obviously not all CA courses are flat. In my league if you had a good team, you would run MTSAC 5 times a year (invite, league finals, CIF prelims and finals, Footlocker). Also, there are plenty of crazy wacked out courses like the Southern Ca invite that run the guys up the samebig hill twice.

By the way, Footlocker puts all state champs on the front if they run the seeded race, no matter how small your division is or what state you come from (podunk Alaska small schools included). did they go back to the grass start last year, I wasn't there? I would assume that they did, it worked better to finish on the track.

Mt. SAC is a bitch but Woodward Park in Fresno isn't that bad. Maybe the Cali kids think it is tough after a long season of road races...er, cross country. It's tough to runn on grass and dirt isn't it?

When I lived in SoCal, cross country was a road race with a few patches of turf in the middle.

Like the courses in PDX and Oregon are much better...Tualatin Hills...Lane CC...Bush Park...c'mon!

In my not so humble opinion, the following:

1 - I believe direction, investment and success do come from coaches or some other original motivator. I think that the best coaches in America are the successful high school coaches. A delegated stand-in at high school is more the norm than having an experienced motivated ex-Olympian giving back to the sport. College coaches? Don't get me started and I'm one.

2 - For the US's strength, i.e. diversity and numbers, yes, we do lack having many great, or even good, coaches at the high school level (Eddy, there certainly are a lot of fantastic HS coaches, but not enough), which leaves us with a few well developed kids, like Ritzenhein, able to progress along the same time line that our international competition progresses; but it also leaves us with volumes and volumes of way-underdeveloped potentials walking onto our collegiate programs hoping to survive the required pitfalls.

3 - Trying to have a national coaching system, or trying to replicate successful programs, is in error. Training for distance running, or any other athletic event, requires SPECIFICITY. Specificity for the true actual demands of the event; specificity for the biology, history and morphology of the athlete. Coaching northern North American kids is different than coaching Southern Californians, or Kenyans or New Mexicans. Even for the same difference. Ask how your kids can be better than the Kenyans... not how they can be like them.

4 - Then it follows, that trying to coach my kids like the Kenyans train is in error. They are not Kenyans. They do not live in Kenya. But they do race 5,000-meters. Understanding why Kenyans are good, though, will be insightful.

5 - Coaching is the basis for having great runners, at least in our country with the lack of recognizable heroes in our sport. It, coaching, should be a strength, but the majority of "good" coaches are employed by colleges with college agendas. I sincerely applaud Wetmore for his world vision at the expense of the college scene. We, as a nation, would be much better served by pooling our emerging junior elites, and others, into one program with a focus on world championship competition. Hmmm, kinda what Webb is doing and why not?

6 - Finally, can coaching be better in the US? Definitely. But we should do something about it.

IMNSHO

Simmons

Size of the system is the problem. I saw somewhere that there are over 108,000 high schools in the U.S. There is no way that you will have enough quality coaches to cover that many kids(If there aren't enough quality teachers, then for sure the coaching will be lacking). At the next level (college) things get thinned out, and unfortunately the cream is separated into different qualities without regard to previous coaching or true genetic potential(DI-DII-DIII). Is it the best system, no! Is it the worst system, no! One thing it is, is a system that handles the numbers thrown at it. Sure athletes fall through the cracks. One that comes to mind is Obea Moore, most likely would have been one of our next Olympic medalist, but he wasn't cut out for the college system. He just didn't have the interest to do the things that would have put him in that system. There should have been another system in place for a talent like that, but there wasn't, just the current "cream rises to the top" system. Having said that, some do survive the misdiagnosis and mis-direction of this system, and the moderator of this board with the 28:10? is a testament to that. It can happen, but it is rare. Making it to the next step is even harder, and borders in the realm of luck. You might do it all right and still not make an olympic team or bust world class times. What am I saying? I am saying that yes the system is flawed, but it is the same system that produced all of our record holders sans Mo Greene. Maybe it isn't the system.....

How 'bout John Babington? Credit results: Olympic medal, three World Cross titles, World indoor medals, umpteen wins and records and national titles with Lynn Jennings.

No oxygen tents, altitude houses, DHEA, EPO, excuses or lame "reasons" for failing. Results when they counted.

and got my IP revealed because I disageed with the Johnson Bros.

High school coaching hasn't fallen off; they aren't worse than drug dealers and they aren't killing our budding athletes. And local HS coaches aren't basing their income on IQ points!

Where do you think the Ritzes, Culpeppers, etc are coming from?

The local coach gets $1500 for coaching CC and track? The greedy bastard! Where is he going to spend all that money?

There's been a ;ot of name callin' on these here boards... but "PR fudger" is a pretty serious accusation! That's like calling someone a Martin Franklyn! YIKES... I am being serious! If someone called me a "PR fudger", I'd be pissed... just thought I'd comment about one of the worst cut-downs I've seen in a long time. Looks like the books have been thrown down...

We can't blame our flawed system on coaching. While we have many horrible coaches in the US, we also have the most dedicated ones. As a high school and now college coach, I know the work many of my colleagues put in. We love the sport and motivate our athletes to do more than they ever imagined. But, at the same time, we have to compete in three sports per year to get our funding and that means racing year round. Most athletes don't have the adequate aerobic base to sustain this and that is where good coaching comes in. I guarantee a top Amerian coach like Wetmore could produce top world class athletes with the same funding, national doctors (legal and illegal use), faucilities and with athletes who run full-time. Remember that its expensive to stay one step ahead of the newest drug testing and most Americans can't afford it. Plus, Wetmore and collegiate and high school coaches are paid not only to produce results, but to produce quality student athletes.

-Art Siemers

So then you agree... we can blame the flawed system.

Distance running is not all that complex, is it? Lydiard is the root & other folk's you have mentioned continue to "freely" provide the blueprint for you to follow.

If you do not reach your potential as a runner, it won't be because you lack support, or a coach, it will likely be because you "talked yourself out of it."

"Ya don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"

You got your IP revealed because you consistently and anonymously flamed JK and the BroJos on this board. If you weren't so damn keen on concealing your identity, along with the empty space where your testes should be, when you were posting your "criticisms" then they probably wouldn't have found it so humorous and telling and then commented on it.

So quit your f***ing whining already, you immature PR fudger.