Univ of Montana finalists

He's retired from full-time teaching. Still does a little teaching a few hours a day.

Does anyone know the order of the interviews?

watch out guys wrote:

Biggest flirt in the NCAA; uses her looks for evil.

pics?????

She is hot becasue she is one of about 10 female coaches in the country! Not sure about her "record" when she assists the real distance coach Drenth.

Arndt-Molis?? who the F is that? She should have to bang every recruit, then the program might be good. they should just scrap the F'en program over there. all those coaches are worthless. plus the school will underfund the program like it always has, not a great place to take a job.

Football will always be king at UM, so maybe they're shifting focus to the women's side of xc, which has a few solid recruits. It's an attractive place to live, and close to a lot of great running, so I can't see why they didn't attract a better pool of candidates.

Does Rita coach Nicole Bush?

how to use this wacky thing called google....

She is f***ing gorgeous, wish she was my coach

The applicants are pretty good. The guy from Wisconsin Parkside has a great track record. The Anchorage coach has had both his teams at nationals recently and can probably deal with the cold. The Idaho State coach is a local guy, and can probably recruit to that type of a location. The Michigan State coach has the enthusiasm needed to energize the program.

I guess some drawbacks could be that the Idaho State program has not done well. The Parkside coach hasn't coached men for that long. The Anchorage program is D2, so that will be a tough transition. The Michigan State coach is probably too young and lacking experience.

As a Montanan, I think they'll have a solid coach next year. My hope is the Parkside coach or the Anchorage coach. Both lots of head coaching experience and success. We need a coach who can get this team back on track. With our states beauty and great running trails, the program should be contending to be a consistent team at nationals instead of a joke that we've been recently.

At the beginning of this process, I heard some talk about a former Mizzoula high school coach who was supposed to be the go-to guy... a former Griz alum with a pretty substantial resume who left Mizzoula to coach in the college ranks somewhere. What ever happened to THAT guy? Sounded pretty good anyway!

Her "record" speaks for itself. Look at how much the women have improved in the 4 years she has been there.

If drenth were in charge, they'd be as bad as the men. Since drenth's arrival, the men have gone in the toilet. Schere, Voss, Pitcock, Shay, Katseferas, etc, etc. More ruined in 4 years than most in a lifetime.

curious tiger wrote:

At the beginning of this process, I heard some talk about a former Mizzoula high school coach who was supposed to be the go-to guy... a former Griz alum with a pretty substantial resume who left Mizzoula to coach in the college ranks somewhere. What ever happened to THAT guy? Sounded pretty good anyway!

Sounds like Bill Ballinger. He started the xc program at Carroll, but I never heard his name in the mix.

I agree that the candidates are "pretty good", but all come from programs that are smaller or less successful than UM. I guess I was expecting a few more D-I coaches in the mix, but then again, you can't expect them to take a step down.

"...or less successful than UM"

That is so strange to say that, I thought there have been very few DISTANCE nat'l qualifiers in recent years (or ever really). I think both Anchorage and Parkside have had more nat'l qualifiers than UM.

Not sure Friess would take the job even if offered.

Why?

He can train his teams on a new 400 meter indoor track facility when the weather gets rough. He has great assistant coaches, a great budget and a great travel schedule.

He had his best recruiting year ever. Alaska state 3200m champ (9:11), a freshman from Canada (3:55 1500), an Australian (1:50.38 800m), and 2 kenyans (14:30 and 3:54 at 6000ft on a dirt track) On the womens side he recruited a 2:12 800m canadian girl, another talented kenyan girl, and a host of quality alaskan athletes. He as most of his team back from last year including the national champion in the long jump. They will be tough.

Why should he go to Montana?

strangie wrote:

That is so strange to say that, I thought there have been very few DISTANCE nat'l qualifiers in recent years (or ever really). I think both Anchorage and Parkside have had more nat'l qualifiers than UM.

That's why I said "smaller or less successful".

Anchorage and UW-Parkside are Div II, therefore smaller.

ISU is same division, but less successful.

I do know that the two full time male asst. coaches have been promised their jobs for next year....

Any news?

Why the delay?

Edward Jones wrote:

Any news?

Why the delay?

The last interview was on Monday. The selection committee began their final deliberation yesterday. They'll make a selection by Friday.

Does the team there have any Assistant Coaches for x-country or distance events? How about any Grad Assistants....if so, any of them women? That might make some difference