I recently got accepted to a college who's XC coach coaches both boys and girls teams. The coach won Coach of the Year for the girls team in the region. The coach is obviously very successful with the girls team, but the guy's team seems to just be mediocre. Is there a difference between coaching guys and girls that would cause this disparity, or is it just the people on the team.
yes, there are major differences between coaching guys and girls teams. what works for girls will rarely work the same for guys. obviously, without knowing what college this is, i can't tell if it is a coaching problem or just less talent on the guys team.
The funding for the programs might be different. On quite a few teams there's a huge disparity in funding (there are a few men's teams that are funded better than the women's team, but that's rare). It might just happen to be the personalities of the athletes, i.e. the guys are a bunch of dumbass alcoholics while the girls are motivated to run. For your sake I hope it's the former.
BTxc wrote:
I recently got accepted to a college who's XC coach coaches both boys and girls teams. The coach won Coach of the Year for the girls team in the region. The coach is obviously very successful with the girls team, but the guy's team seems to just be mediocre. Is there a difference between coaching guys and girls that would cause this disparity, or is it just the people on the team.
"whose"
Let me guess--not an Ivy?
well, i cannot speak to the situation you are in. but at our college the coach coaches both teams. our men's team (diii) went to nationals, and our girls team finished at the back of the pack in the region. our coach just does not get girls, and can't coach them for shit. he gets a ton of talent, but they always seem to quit or get injured or get fat. so i think he has given up on girls xc, since now he has started recruiting sprinters instead of distance girls. i imagine the problem could go the other way too, but probably not nearly as badly.
well, i wanted to leave the name out, but there dont seem to be any a**holes on this thread. Case Western Reserve
Whoa...UAA school. (Let's avoid that whole "DIII Ivy" discussion.) Their women definitely did a great job this year. That UAA win was huge. CWRU is a great school, very well respected, and of course offers (in the UAA meets) the chance to compete with some of the very best DIII athletes in the country.
If memory serves, CWRU has more male than female students (still true?), and of course no athletic scholarships--so yeah, all else being equal, you'd expect the men to be at least as good as the women.*
Still, I agree with one of the posters above: different cultures can arise on the different sexes' teams, and sometimes getting the lagging squad to change its attitudes can be very tough--it's often mostly out of the coach's control (beyond cutting everybody from the team and starting over).
There was a whole thread some months back that was dedicated to this general topic. You don't have to look much farther than jtupper to find a program whose women were almost untouchable, and whose men were a full step lower (though still one of the better teams in the Region).
I believe, along with others, that men and women *are* different and--in general--do need to be coached somewhat differently (in terms of physiology, psychology, and mechanics). And the sex of the person who coaches both squads is a poor indicator of which sex's team will be the more competitive: some (not many get the chance) female coaches work better with male athletes; quite a few male coaches have more competitive women's teams.
*Except that it's still a bit easier to be competitive on the women's side than on the men's. Thirty years ago, when I was coaching college women (and pretty much clueless about kinesiology/physiology, by the way), it was *much* easier: we were a very good team just because the women showed up and did some kind of workout, however misguided, every day.
To answer your question, the teams there just seem to cycle in terms of performance.Well if you were to view results from the 2003 season, you could have said just the opposite, as the men's team was at nationals that year and the womens team was mediocre, both were under the same coach as today.Also, 8th place isn't really that bad considering there are 30 or so teams in a region, and that their entire top 7 was composed of sophomores and freshmen.
BTxc wrote:
I recently got accepted to a college who's XC coach coaches both boys and girls teams. The coach won Coach of the Year for the girls team in the region. The coach is obviously very successful with the girls team, but the guy's team seems to just be mediocre. Is there a difference between coaching guys and girls that would cause this disparity, or is it just the people on the team.
picking nits wrote:
"whose"
Let me guess--not an Ivy?
actually, it's "that's"
Ivy means nothing. Look at this Web site for example.
barny wrote:
picking nits wrote:"whose"
Let me guess--not an Ivy?
actually, it's "that's"
No, 'whose' is right. You forgot the original context. If it had been who's (as it was misspelled) then you'd have a point.
(Some hypercorrect primary-school teachers might try to argue that you can't say 'whose' because a college is not a person, but there is no other relative pronoun available; we'd have have to reach for preposterous formulations such as, 'a college, the coach of which...')
Sorry. Great thread!
I would not recommend going to Case for other than academic reasons. If you’re looking to run competitively in college there are many other schools with as highly touted academic programs as Case but with far better athletic programs. Some schools in the UAA that come to mind with much better running programs are NYU, CMU, and WashU.
I have read through the thread quickly, we don't know if the person that started this post is male or female. So in the case of suggesting they attend NYU over CWRU because NYU has a better running program - only for men, their women are pretty bad.
Also - "guys" and "girls" are not equal as labels of gender. "boys" and "girls" are equal (guys could mean someone much older chronologically speaking). we are talking about college MEN and WOMEN (not girls, gals, chicks, or any other lesser, derogatory term). I am sure someone will laugh at this, but if a poster commented on the boys cross country team at Colorado or Arkansas, someone would correct them quickly - certainly the MEN on the team should do so. "Boys" do not go to college and certainly do not run collegiate XC races.
doa wrote:
I would not recommend going to Case for other than academic reasons. If you’re looking to run competitively in college there are many other schools with as highly touted academic programs as Case but with far better athletic programs. Some schools in the UAA that come to mind with much better running programs are NYU, CMU, and WashU.
Running is not top priorty for me. Its there for me to have something to do to keep me sane, to stay active, and just to have fun. Anyway, I am applying to WashU and CMU aswell, I was just curious about the coaching at CWRU.
As for the post above me, I am a male. Im sorry for refering teams as boys and girls or whatever.
Ahhhh, what all college coaches want:
BTxc wrote:
Running is not top priorty for me. Its there for me to have something to do to keep me sane, to stay active, and just to have fun.
Gender Info wrote:
Ahhhh, what all college coaches want
When i make commitments i keep them. I am dedicated to running and will not waste my coach's time
First of all, Case Western Reserve University is a very good school - but you probably already know that.
Because it's DIII, disparities between the men's and women's teams can often be explained by recruiting. Without (direct) athletic scholarships, and especially at a school like Case that is somewhat difficult to get in to, the caliber of athletes can flucuate from year to year and from gender to gender simply based on which athletes get in and come to the school. Sure, the coach has a big role in recruiting, but ultimately things are out of his/her control, and this has more of an effect in division III.
Off the top of my head, I recall Case's men had a high finisher at Nationals a few years ago, Aaron Johnston-Peck, although I do not think he is still competing.
Another asset that just occured to me is that even if the women's program is having a phenomenal year and doing better than the men, in my experience, since it is a small school and small team, that success affects the other gender as well and is motivating for next season as well as simply exciting to be a part of a winning program, even if it's not technically your half of the team.
Good luck whatever you decide.
Hi, I am a former runner of case. The head coach is incompetent and immature and don’t expect much attention if you’re not a top runner. I’ve had limited dealings with Dario and Jeff but it seems as if they both have their acts together and I think their track records support that.
But it sounds like you’re just looking to make some friends and keep in shape and the team is good for that, or at least when I was there. The both the men’s and women’s teams got along well and in general everyone was nice and had a good time together