Name the Good and Bad Division III programs

Calvin Coll. in Mich. has great programs, if you can deal with the religious thing. Brian Diemer is one of the best men's coaches.

Hope Coll. also has good program in Mich., though they obviously struggle to beat Calvin. But they get a few national qualifiers in track every year, run a good schedule and Northuis is a great guy and coach ... not a "great" national program in terms of placings, but pretty solid.

qdog wrote:

. Tom Donnelly has consistently produced top runners at a school that is very tough to get into. I have heard of kids with combined SAT's of over 1400 who did not get in. Karl Paranya was the first and I think only D-III runner to break 4 for the mile when he ran 3:57 in the late 90's. He was probably the best known Haverford product but there is a long list of others. In the last 10 years Haverford men have consistently been in the top ten for xc in D-III and their roster is often filled with a bunch of 4:40 high school milers. Tom Donnelly is the best at making lemonade out of lemons.

Don't know about the 4:40 high school milers comment. They get plenty of sub 4:25/9:30 guys. I run in their conference, and did a little research last year of the FR class. A 4:14 guy, 4:01 1500 runner, 9:25 3200 runner were some of the guys. That being said, their dominance in the conference and region speaks for itself. Great coaching+great recruiting.

I will second the UW-Oshkosh. Rumor has it that both Zupanc and Deb were in the running for the Wisconsin jobs (when Jerry was rumored to be heading to NAU and Tegen was booted).

Zupanc seems to get the absolute most out of his guys, and I haven't heard any bad things about him. He has always been great to me, and I didn't go to UWO.

I still regret not going there. . .

TurdFurguson

qdog wrote:

Tom Donnelly has consistently produced top runners at a school that is very tough to get into. I have heard of kids with combined SAT's of over 1400 who did not get in.

I had a 1560 (yes, of 1600) and didn't get in. Remember, Haverford takes only about 300 students each year. I ended up somewhere I like well enough for academics and running, though, so no regrets.

While I was applying I got to talk to Donnelly for a couple hours. He seemed like a great guy, and his results speak for themselves.

Don't know about the 4:40 high school milers comment. They get plenty of sub 4:25/9:30 guys. I run in their conference, and did a little research last year of the FR class. A 4:14 guy, 4:01 1500 runner, 9:25 3200 runner were some of the guys. That being said, their dominance in the conference and region speaks for itself. Great coaching+great recruiting.

While I think those are accurate times for Haverford's freshman class, I don't think that's their average incoming class. From what I've heard, that was one of the, if not THE, best freshman class they've ever had. From what I know of the program, 4:40 closer to the average incoming runner there. They obviously turn out great talent, though. I heard somewhere that their top 5 or 6 guys ever in the mile average something like 4:01. I don't think any other Division III can compete with that.

Those of us who have been around for a long time, know that Haverford has had occasional very accomplished high school runners like Mike Sheely who made a world junior cross team back in 1979. But the teams bread and butter has been average high school runners who wanted to work hard and contribute to a great team in any way they can.

They don't get "plenty" of sub-4:25/9:30 guys, not in HS anyway. J.B. Hagland, who won national titles his senior year in X-C, indoors and outdoors (in 5K and 10K) was a 4:38 miler in HS. The 4:30/4:40 range is a lot more common for incoming freshman.

What makes Donnelly the best coach I have ever seen is that he has almost 10% of the male students in the school on his team.... and he treats the progress of each and every one of those athletes as important. He has taken guys that never even ran before and made them good runners. The trick is that he teaches them how to do it themselves.

Another reason he is a good coach is that he has done a terrific job with elites. Sydney Maree's US records in the 1500/2000/5000 were set when Donnelly was coaching him.

Well, that would be bad news for me. Thanks for the info. The team's depth is so good- I never meant to say that the 4:30-40 guys/9:40-10:00 guys don't make an impact or are not a huge part of the team. Just looking at how many guys go sub 16/sub 4:10 etc. would make that seem stupid. Just saying that they get some HS stars as well. Nothing to be ashamed of, again the 4:01 stat is ridiculous. The 3 mentioned weren't supposed to be the average or the norm as I'm sure that lies closer to what people have been saying.

My point is that no one who really likes running and competing should think that Haverford is not a good school for them, regardless of how fast they have run to date.

Paranya did not break 4:20 in HS, in fact, I seem to recall his PR was something like 4:24. Not bad, but how many guys that good drop their PR 27 seconds in college?

Division III gets a lot of late bloomers and sleepers, and the programs with great coaches (like Donnelly and Carius, there are many others who do a great job in Division III) really can help them shine.

KayLev wrote:

TCNJ

The only issue I have with The College of New Jersey is that they are as large as many DI schools. They are talented for a DIII school but should they be DIII is the question.

Does anyone know anything about Luther Colleges program?

I have heard about this and I do not believe that in regaurds to things being blown out of proportion about Coach Pennington at Springfield. From what I have heard is Pennington knowingly sent an athlete who earned an award over to the awards ceremony where all the other teams and athletes and coaches and parents were by herself while he and the rest of the team stayed way across a field. How embarassing to have her name called and have no one there from her team not even a coach? Appropriate? This young lady from what I know was forced to run a meet which had been used as a rest weekend in previous years while the #2 runner I think it was on the team got to sit out of the race.. oh and right that was after the fact that Coach Pennington let the team vote on who ran that race but did it when the #1 runner was not there and said her sitting out was not an option so someone else needed to volunteer themselves out of the race. Right good coaching behavoir totally in line and appropriate. Ive heard other things too but dont be knockin whoever the person may be I doubt just out of spite whoever would just do such a thing out of hate, theres prob much more there than anyone will ever know about. Either way I say this man sounds like a definite problem in the coaching world and its not a program I would want my daughter running for. I also heard drop off rates are hugee on the xc and track teams there. A few is normal but over a handful for non related injury reasons...somethings up there especially when the team roster is already not very long. They should be doing exit polls when someone drops off. Also whats up with the telling athletes to lose weight? My daughter is looking at d3 schools and shes not looking at springfield but I would never want her going there. Not an atmosphere I would trust. I truely believe the school academically and in most sports is wonderful but this area needs a lot of work.

SUNY Geneseo, Also SUNY Brockport...while not a strong team good program and is building it up

Elaborate on why Wheaton is/was terrible? I graduated x years ago so I'm not as emotional or idealistic as I once was, so I'll be objective and fair as possible. I'll preface by saying that I don't want to be too specific or I'll just get people riled up. Wheaton's track program has gone to sh*t over the past several years because of the reputation of the coaching staff due to the internet. Results posted online speak for themselves; rarely do the athletes improve from high school to college, unless the athlete was just pure uptapped potential to begin with. I was a rarity in that I actually improved. However, I was bitter about how the coaching staff handled its athletes. The coaching staff, one coach especially, was extremely manupulating, verbally abusive, unethical in so many ways, and could care less about the athlete aside from their performances. The coaches/coach would vehemently deny this, and the sadest truth to all of this is that the coach(s) may be totally oblivious/manic/delusional to their behavior because of how f*cking huge their ego is. Detailing why not to go to Wheaton is a waste of posting space and would be considered libelous by some. Bottom line, being objective; the retention rate of the athletes is terrible, the injury rate is extremelty high, and most leave the program on bad terms. I only wrote this post to save a soul from an abusive program. What is pathetic is that so many athletes have tried to get the coach(s) fired, but to no avail because of their previous national championships. If you want a solid/great dIII program : CALVIN, WILLIAMS, BOWDOIN, BATES. The coaches of these programs are terrific, aside from results, and athletes leave happy. BEST OF LUCK

ALP wrote:

The three strongest DIII conferences for both men and women are WIAC (Wisconsin), UAA (universities in cities) and NESCAC (New England small schools). You can figure out specifics about men/women, middle/long distance from checking out meet results and individual school websites.

This was a great summary. If you're in any of these conferences, you're going to get great competitive opportunities. I used to know some of the UAA and NESCAC coaches pretty well--some were better coaches than others, but just about all were great people.

PS: And an interesting, though kind of sad, piece of trivia: NYU (one of those UAA schools) is both a good *and* a bad program, depending on your sex.

Williams is a good program, and Smith for an all womens school has good program which has stuggled but is now on an upward swing.

Yes NESCAC Schools are good schools...its like mini nationals when running against these schools during regular season meets.Definitly look at Williams.

Wheaton sounds scary.

I'm fairly certain J.B. Haglund never won a 5k indoor national title... If I remember correctly, Pat Frascone smoked him indoor at Ohio something...

but, to his credit, he did run great outdoor and cc....