Should HS Coaches be judged by the post-HS performances of their athletes?

Yes, HS athletes are not physically at their peak, they should be able to improve once they graduate from HS.

High school coaches should be judged solely by how their athletes perform in high school. Once the kids graduate, they're someone else's responsibility.

Not exclusively. There are a lot of terrible college coaches out there and it's not a high school coach's fault if the next step isn't handled correctly. However, some high school coaches set their athletes - especially girls - for failure in the future with insane workload during their prep tenure. It is also silly to wonder what happened to every 4:20 guy or 5:10 girl after high school. While these times are solid, they are not enough to warrant trading in the other commitments of college. Sometimes partying, or studying, is just more important than scoring a point at a conference meet.

I've had athletes do extremely well in college (multiple All-Americans) but I've had a 1:57 800 guy rejected by his coach and a 4:14 1600 runner simply destroyed by his coach. They all went through the same high school program so there are too many extraneous factors to adequately judge by college performance alone.

Odd, I know of two people at my college, with those PRs, who both aren't on the team. The 800 guy got rejected, and the mile guy is very injured. I wonder if it's the same people.

I find at college coaching is very weak in the US. In a lot of areas, the HS coaches are better. Many good coaches do not wish to take very low paying college assistant jobs, when they can continue to be paid well as HS teachers.

Huh? wrote:

High school coaches should be judged solely by how their athletes perform in high school. Once the kids graduate, they're someone else's responsibility.

I've coaches some very good high school runners who went DI and were injured. They were never, or rarely, injured in high school, got to college- injuries which in some cases ended careers.

Not my fault. In one case a girl went from 40 mpw in HS, running sub 7 for the 2000 steeple to 80 mpw in college with little or not build up to it and injuries which cost two years and caused a transfer where she is now doing fine.

Again, not my fault.

Yes, but only to a slight degree. Well it is true that a HS coach has a huge role in setting up an athlete for potential long term development, they don't have any real control over that athletes collegiate career. Whats to say that an athletes poor performance at the college level isn't due to a college coaching flaw instead of a HS coaching one?

I wonder about this too. I mean lets say a kid IS over trained and over raced in HS. Once they get to college shouldn't someone that young be able to shake that off with just one semester off or a semester of easy running?

I think MOST high school kids that fail in college want to blame their failure on a physical reason, but in truth their failure is that they get distracted by the social scene, work/money issues, even some "real life" stuff like girl friends/family pressures. HS is so so so small those variables are easily controlled, not so in college.

I've said it before. College is such a crap shoot. Many times a high school kid is good because of the team environment or the attitude of everyone around them and they just can't duplicate that same thing is college. Also, many college coaches assume that because they are "adults" they should know how to handle injuries, outside stress and how to return to form once they are out of it. At the college level there are very few meets where an athlete can run their way back to shape and feel good about themselves so many athletes get discouraged.

On top of all this, college coaches have a "program" in mind and expect all freshman to follow it no matter what their starting point is. They increase mileage, intensity of workouts and much tougher races all at once. That is a receipe for disaster. One last thing. I can't believe how many good high school programs I see now that are doing core work, dynamic flexibility and hurdle work. Many college coaches, just expect athletes to do this stuff on their own and it doesn't become a priority so it is dropped in favor of more running. More running is important, but as the saying goes, you got to dance with the girl you came with. In other words, keep doing the little things right that got you good in the first place.

Only if a large percentage of their athletes seem to burn out due to over training in HS. Some coaches try to ring out every bit they can out of an athlete and end up using them up. Other than that specific case the coach has little to do with how much motivation and work ethic an teletext goes on to have.

I agree with the last two posts. College is a crap shoot.

I know I was amazed at how hands off our college coach was. His attitude was that he wasn't going to hold anyone's hand through the ordeal, also we went through people like water!

While they are college age I do think a little hand holding and guidance would've helped keep some of the guys stay in school and kept us from constantly having to fill spots.

If that was the case, everyone would think Wetmore was a horrible coach.

Ridiculous....High School and College have been and will be judged on how they WIN!!! Remember, this is American Track, where great young distant talent is almost always burned out in High School and NCAA in pursuit of points and victories!!!

Here is another idea. To even get to run in college you have to work pretty hard in high school. The worst coaches are the one who never even get kids to run in college. The high profile hs coaches always get a bad rap if their kids don't run well in high school, but most schools never even get kids to run in college or beyond. Those are the truly bad coaches. I think it is better to burn out than never get lit up.

Huh? wrote:

High school coaches should be judged solely by how their athletes perform in high school.

I coached for a quarter-century (mostly at the college level), have pondered this question deeply for much of that time, and have come to agree with the statement quoted above.

Well over 90% of kids who compete in high school never run a (competitive) step afterward. The high school coach's job is to provide a rewarding educational experience for his students, *while* they're his students. That's it.

I tend ot believe kids are over worked in High School.

Key shoudl be to make sur ethey keep training, competing, enjoying themselves, learn to tackle goals. And stay healthy.

Its too easy to run kids into the ground in High School and think that you are making them better. Kids at that age getter by having an extra hours sleep.

American coaching is about coaches. Not about athletes.

Generally high school coaching is the teacher making an extra $3 K to hold the watch. The wrestling coach making the skinny kids work. The football guy making his fast guys work for football.

Occasionally you'll get a guy who loves the sport.

I don't think high school coaches should be judged by the post-high-school performances of their athletes very much. I think they can be to some extent though, like if they made them hate running (or love it).

No, they shouldnt be. In some cases maybe, but you cant for all of them. For example, i had a fantastic high school coach, who cared for and developed ALL his athletes, boys, girls, JV, varsity. not one kid went through the system and didnt improve huge amounts. also, almost no one got hurt. training was extremely reasonable and personalized. we won several state championships. but if you look at how his athletes performed after college, several of our best runners, including me, went to two specific colleges. both colleges had terrible coaches, and just about all his athletes got hurt there, including me, and everyone else on those teams. so it wasnt his fault at all, but he really doesnt have much college success to show for.