Best college coaches

check out the thread on "best mile coaches" and you'll get your answer

Peter Thomas - Keene State (NH) - DIII

Developes distance talent on a consistant basis, great area

to train. Takes the 4:30/10:00 runner and gets the most out

of them. His frosh class has 5-6 like this and it will be

interesting to see their progress.

Scott Simmons - Minot State

Kevin Donner is a great coach. He did a fantastic job at St Francis with Brian Sell among others. He is doing a fine job filling some big shoes at Bucknell. No scholarships at BU but excellent academics and a good tradition.

Brian

What about the Western State coach?

Post your GPA and SATs, that way we can direct you to the best Academic environment for you with the best possibe coach. Oh yeah, what about your major? Campus environment/ climate? City School or rural? what section of the country do you want to live in for four years? Academic achievments? Honors or Awards? Post your college application essay so we can get a feel on a good school for you. I wouldn't recommend Keene St. if your going to be an Engineer, I would recomend MIT.

Definitely take a look at the milers thread and the posts on Tom Donnelly of Haverford. His athletes have shown large consistent improvement for over 25 years. He is one of the best 1500/mile coaces in the world but has also had great success with distance athletes.

Miler's thread:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=33924&thread=33924

There are many great coaches at the DI level. When you look at Stanford, Arkansas, Oregon, Colorado, etc. However, my vote for the best college coach for taking an average runner like yorself and turning him into a great runner is Craig Fuller at Central Michigan University. They are currently ranked 8th in DI and have guys in their top 5 that barely ran 4:25, 9:50 in HS.

You beat me to the punch. I was going to vouch for Fuller and Central Michigan as well. I have seen him turn 9:50 2 milers into All-Americans.

Also, the CMU School of Business (the MIS and logistics programs in particular), college of teaching, and college of Physical Therapy have very good reputations.

-Clay

Robert Johnson, of course! Cornell. He's got a sensible approach and he dosen't burn people out! His runners have improved alot this season. Look for good things from Cornell once he's been able to recruit for a couple of years. Plus he's just a plain ol nice guy-

I can only tell you want i know from experience. Robert Hoppler is the distance coach at the University of New Hampshire. In high school i ran 40 miles per week and my prs were 1:56 800m, 4:27 1600m, 8:58 3000m. Last year i ran 4:05 mile indoors, 8:15 3000m (8:18 trials the night before), and this year i have run 24:14 for 8km and was 12th in the blue race at pre-nats. Hopp develops each runner individually and the program has worked for me. he was at NH from 1993? - 1998 then at VT from 1999-2000, and is now back at UNH.

This is the only college I've ever run for, so this is all I can tell you.

but rojo isnt anywhere near as good a distance coach as the man in charge of the women on east hill.

Along the lines of developing runners, consider coach Piane of Notre Dame. Shay ran 9:20 for 3200m in high school and ran 13:35 (5k) and 28:26 (10k) while at ND. Piane does get some very good high school runners, but he will also give those a chance who he believes can contribute to the team and show they want to work hard.

University of Wisconsin - Jerry Schumacher is AWESOME and really does a good job developing people. You may not get to race right away but it is worth the investment to spend 5 years with the man and Madison is a tremendous place to train.

Scott Walkinshaw - Black Hills State University

A list of great distance coaches is not complete without the two gurus of the big sky.

Mann from NAU consistently creates teams that are top 10 in Cross. Ranked 4th right now in cross.

Hislop takes 4:20-4:30 high school runners and gets them to run under 8:45 in the steeple. Ranked 9th right now in cross.

Al Carius of North Central College. A great coach, great tradition, and guys like Jim Spivey and Ken Popejoy would agree with me when I say I've never seen a program where the team has more fun or team synergy than NCC.

Sean Cleary from WVU, he turns average guys into studs, and he's also the coolest coach out there as well.

steve bohan 8:56 3000m hs

28:55 10000m college

Mann runs an excellent program.