McNeese State?

You don't even know where the school is located?

Its in louisiana, I meant the location as in the areas surrounding it, is the town a shithole? is the town nice for running. etc.

i'm originally from the lake charles area (which is where mcneese state is located). the head coach there, brendon gilroy, is an awesome coach. i ran in his track club while i was in high school and i loved being coached by him. he's very personable and a great guy and he cares about all of his runners, no matter how fast or slow they are. he gets results with his coaching too - he helped several of us distance guys make nationals in summer track and he brought the high school program he coached from the bottom of the heap to state champions within years. personally, i would have loved to run for him in college if i could have. as for lake charles, it's a decent sized city (over 100,000 or so people in the area).....not the greatest running town, but not too bad. it's about 2-2.5 hours from houston and 2 hours from baton rouge as well. i'd say if you have any questions just ask coach gilroy and i'm sure he'd be more than happy to answer them for you. hope this helps!

Thanks, yeh i am in contact with coach gilroy. he seems pretty cool

McNeese State and Tulane are the only two schools to qualify for NCAA XC Championships in Louisiana history.

yeah, me too... he seems really nice! I know that he is a new(ish) coach though, one of the previous coaches got busted for breaking rules, and next year will be the first year they are off probation or somthing.

Theyre very British... do you like people with bad teeth, if so go there.

Lake Charles is a fairly good town. It's not great, but you could certainly do a lot worse. Like someone posted earlier, its only a few hours from Houston, TX and Baton Rouge/New Orleans, so depending on what you want to study, you wouldnt have to travel far to find your first job after graduation.

Coach Gilroy is a nice guy; most people I know who have run for him have nothing but good things to say.

McNeese State is very much in the process of building a program. Under the old coach, they were primarily a team of Irish mercenaries, but not so much anymore. The team is made up of a lot of local LA/TX kids, along with a few of the leftover imports.

Hope this helps.

Possible McNeeser wrote:

Hi, anyone got any info about the Mcneese State distance program. I'm being recruited by them and would like to know what they are like, coaching, location, school etc. anyone got any info?

Lake Charles is NOT a fun place to live OR (more importantly) to train. Coach Gilroy is a below average coach....just look at what he has produced...or NOT produced to prove that.

Now, the track program as a whole is good because they have good sprinters and field events, but distance is terrible! The best college distance coach in Louisiana is BY FAR Coach Stanley (Louisiana Tech), you can look up his credientials for proof. The McNeese guys on the team (if you talk to them) are going to feed you A LOT of bullshit about how they are gonna be so great in a year or 2....they've been saying that for YEARS! Another thing, they've got a few BIG shit talkers on the team that run their mouths a lot, they will pretend to be you buddy, so just learn to cut through the BS (you have to do that on any recruiting trip).

I can tell you A LOT more about McNesse if you would like. I use to attend college in Louisiana. I can contact you by e-mail if you would like.

Kim Smith (NCAA Champ) went to McNeese. Hated it. Left. Then went to Providence and started to run fast. Won a bunch of NCAA titles and set NCAA ecords at Providence. Not to positive about time at McNeese.

If Brian Mcniece can catch you, he can kill you.

lake charles smells really bad. i'm mean really awful, like make you want to puke stench. i think it's the chemical plants spewing chemicals in the air. seriously.

if you are British with aspirations of running fast when you come over here, you might want to look elsewhere. Many Brits have gone to McNeese over the years with quite poor results

I haven't been affiliated with the school, but don't like the bashing that's been going on. Gilroy is a well-connected coach who has done decent things with young runners. There are other coaches in the program who are also good and, in general, it's probably the second or third best program in the state (behind LSU/Tech, in no particular order). I don't know much about training in Lake Charles, but the city is not my favorite. It makes little difference to most kids because they don't really enjoy the nice things about cities during college, anyway. McNeese has a great tradition and it's got decent facilities. You're likely not someone who has to choose between, say, NC State and McNeese, so let's all keep this in mind. If they're offering you decent money and the program you think you might like to study is competent at McNeese, there's no reason to ignore the school because the city smells.

Now, if you want to talk about my views on Lake Charles as a group of people, that's a good bit different.

JOE DUUUUUMARS!!!!!!!!!

I did not run at Mcneese, but lived in Lake Chuck for 3 horrible years. What a town of redneck losers! The track facilities are ok at best. It's football first and foremost on campus. I ran with the xc teams of the past, and they were not anything to brag about - at all.

My opinion - if you want to stay in that area, why not go somewhere there is a nice climate for running, hot babes, and a good academic history with the school? None of that describes Mcneese from what I learned while living there.

I would say Houston, LSU or even Ole Miss.

Stay well away from McNeese. The town of Lake Charles is an absolute shit hole. The team are not good and never will be. Gillroy is a very nice guy but nice guys dont make great coaches. If you are looking for a good time with slow track times then you should go there. If you want to run well in the NCAA go somewhere with a better climate and serious athletes.