Is MSU's Walt Drenth That Good of A Coach?

I think it is an issue of trying to narrow down which Walt stories to tell...

My favorite quote from had to be during track season we were hosting a home track meet he states "If you cant run fast on a night like this then you might as well go bowling." In all i believe most of the quotes on Walt are pretty accurate he appreciates hard works he is more intrested in developing quality student atletes than prima donas. He tought me so much about life and hard work and perservence I'll be forever grateful I came in a punk boy and left him as a mature young man Ill always appreciate that.

Walt was fond of saying when the weather was really nice during meet time, "If can't be competitve at a meet like this, then you might as well quite and join the bowling team" (or something to that effect).

During a team meeting Walt once called out some of the 800m guys. Apparently during their cooldown, Walt was running behind and actually ended up catching up to the group. If you've ever seen Walt run, he is very out-of-shape and SLOW. You can imagine him not being very pleased that his guys were shuffling at 9 min pace. I remember him screaming,"That was an absolute ABOMINATION", followed by some supressed laughter by the distance guys. Walt is the man.

I agree with knower of knowledge. Walt is prone to extremely variable moods. Exploding at runners and telling them how bad they did by using memorable sayings...does that qualify as "good" coaching? For a lot of people that's not motivation.

I did receive your text...thank you Ms. Scalzo!! I miss you too...come back to ASU?:)

Okay, I don't want to call Walt out or anything...but I remember at this meet, he was sort of giggling and he's like, let's see what kind of reaction I can get out of Michelle...(we were lost on our way to dinner and following her)...we got out of the van and he says very seriously and stern "Dammnit Michelle!!"...his hard-assness (is that a word?) was all a front! And I was never afraid of him again:)[quote]Jessica wrote:

El Hombre wrote:

he bought that team. Tell him to start recruiting 10 flat guys like Vin and Wetmore, than let's see what he can do.

theres no way in hell wetmore would even look at a 10 flat runner even though he could make them hella faster.

MWO wrote:

factsoflife wrote:

4. MSU did get in because of a fluke rule on the push as the last team into Nationals!

They weren’t pushed in.

The only push rule that helped them was the fact that there was only one spot left when they came up on the bubble and therefore Iowa State can't push Missouri in. You only get a push if both teams go.

Hes talking about the push that should have gotten THEM into nationals. Eastern should have pushed them as eastern should be going.

If there is one word I could use to describe Walt Drenth it is PASSION. Passion for the sport, passion for coaching, and passion for making something out of nothing. He built the women's ASU program from almost nothing. When I first met him, he and I discussed on how good I wanted to be and how good we wanted the team to get. He assured me that the hard work I was willing to commit would pay off and that the team would be built with athletes that had the same attitude. He was right, after a couple of years the team went to nationals and so it began.

I miss him and his funny quotes and wish nothing but the best for him and his team.

is Walt a good coach, yes.

but are his quotes as memorable as Prof. Sniz? Rodger!

I think Stinzi was the reason State has sucked recently.

"THIS IS F***ING BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!"

I'm sure there were some great Walt-isms today.

Errr .. look at the results. Walt is pretty damn good.

Men - 17th (they "sneaked in"? ... please)

Women - 12th (the man behind the scenes with this one)

And where was this program three years ago?

I'm guessing there was a whole lotta "Were kickin a**! Do your part!" ... wish I could've been there. Congrats Spartans.

When talking to Walt on Saturday before the women's race, he said:

"Sorry to interupt, but look at that blue bird over there. It's so fat, you could almost shoot it and eat it."

I starting laughing and said that I was going to post that quote and he said he was just not going to open his mouth anymore!!

Drenth has to be a pretty damn good coach. I ran against Bartlebaugh and Sprangel in high school. Bartlebaugh was a decent d3 runner, and Sprangel was a great d4 runner (so a little better than Bartlebaugh). MSU also grabbed a few kids from a really good Stockbridge team (another d3 school) a few years back, but those guys all seem to have left the sport. The point is that MSU has been taking small town guys who were never that great in high school (clearly Voss is an exception here), and turning them into pretty damn good runners.

Walt is a good coach for a certain kind of runner, but whoever said he is prone to prejudging some runners and refusing to change his mind is right on the money.

They'll be no better than 8th with either the mens or womens conference meet this weekend.

this 2 year old thread was dragged out ..why?

im not sure