Attention Gibby: This is the Big Ten

From all the negative posts on this board over the last few months, Michigan's alumni appear to be the most conniving group of bellyachers around. Why don't you do your alma mater a favor, and keep your opinion to yourself or discuss your grievances with the interested parties in private. You're not doing the Michigan program any favors by coming onto a public forum, which high school students and coaches use to vet programs, to bash the coaching staff.

Hey Waaaa, call a spade a spade. Michigan distance is hurting badly. I won't even get into the Tennessee men's track program going downhill. Both gibby and JJ need a wake up call.

It has been a disappointing run for Michigan. What ever happened to the New Zealand kids who were supposed to be the second coming of Willis?

I think the whole program will be in big trouble if they're at the bottom again this weekend at conference. Gibby at least made Nationals in XC.

I listened to Hadsell's podcast this past week and he had Gibby on his weekly show. Hadsell talks about the middle distance crew and he talks about Letsrun criticism. http://coffeetalk.podomatic.com

Word on the street out east is that Dan Lowry will do his 5th year at Michigan. Dan ran 13:34 this season so far.

Waaaa! wrote:

From all the negative posts on this board over the last few months, Michigan's alumni appear to be the most conniving group of bellyachers around. Why don't you do your alma mater a favor, and keep your opinion to yourself or discuss your grievances with the interested parties in private. You're not doing the Michigan program any favors by coming onto a public forum, which high school students and coaches use to vet programs, to bash the coaching staff.

Is that you Gibby?

He's always been good with individuals who are already fast...or able to maintain their talent. He has been weak in the development areas though. Same story from before he coached at SFA to today at Michigan.

The biggest challenge for Michigan is the cost for out of state tuition, and the competition for recruiting in-state from MSU, EMU and CMU.

Many of the other B1G universities offer in-state tuition to neighboring states. Michigan out of state tuition is similar to that of private colleges - $36K+ per year, just for tuition. At least private schools are able to offer tons of financial aid, without it counting against their 12.8 scholarships allowed. If a kid comes into Michigan with certain types of aid, then he will count against the team's 12.8

Gibby is a proven coach for cross country, and distance runners. Unfortunately, he has to split the scholarships with sprints, jumps and throws, so prob only has 3-4 scholarships to work with. How many 9min guys can you really expect to recruit with that little money, and out-of state tuition being so expensive?

Michigan really needs to combine the programs, and have a specialist distance coach, and a specialist mid-distance coach. Very few coaches have the expertise to coach the 800m runner through to the 10k well, especially when you cant just throw tons of scholarship money around at the best kids in the nation.

How about Gibby be the distance coach, and Mcguire be the mid-distance coach? both have proven records in these areas. Heck, given the cold climate, throw all your scholarship money towards these areas, and they could get some of the best recruits in the country. Michigan just isn't going to be able to be competitive again, unless they can get better value for their scholarship $$

Reading this thread had me thinking about PSU when Groves left and Arkansas when McDonnell left.As a result, I think LetsRun.com should come up with an official form letter that we post whenever a legendary coach retires.Let's crowdsource the letter. Here is my first draft:

Any suggested improvements are welcome. We can just pull the letter out of the vault anytime there is a big-time resignation.

That letter is awesome.

Look at the results from Gibby's walk on freshmen at Hillsdale and then from Morsi Ryyan who just ran 13:57. Gibby can develop talent and IS developing talent at Michigan most of you are just to stupid to realize it.

Warhurst on the other hand did a terrible job in his last 10 years with 90% of his athletes.

Gibby is a great coach!!

Bellyaching. Like football and basketball coaches don't confront similar challenges when they start but it's fine to ride them out of town. Track is lucky that most alumni don't care and those that do are cheapskates and thus not influential.

I listened to the Hadsell interview. Good insight. Did any of you listen to the interview he had after with Scott Jones at Akron? Interesting research.

JJ's still a back stabbing a-hole.

Does an NCAA leading 8:28 steeple make you people shut up?

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4575225

If one spends 20 minutes with Gibby, you can tell he is a good coach. End of story.

I don't get why Gibby needs to be compared versus Warhurst. Warhurst's Olympic medals speak for themselves.

Taking a 8:44 high school 2 miler and having him run a 8:28 steeple after 4 years should silence critics? Ugh, not really Rojo sorry. All the points in this thread still stand.

TLW wrote:

Taking a 8:44 high school 2 miler and having him run a 8:28 steeple after 4 years should silence critics? Ugh, not really Rojo sorry. All the points in this thread still stand.

How many good HS distance runners to you expect to be on the verge of hitting the Olympic "A" standard with a time that is five seconds faster than the fastest US guy from last year has done this year (and he has had how many steeple races). If you got some more brains you might almost be average, so drop the attitude and get some perspective; maybe it would have helped if you had seen the race).

Is it surprising that a former 8:44 HS 2 miler on the verge of hitting an Olympic A standard? It doesn't surprise me at all.

When I saw the result I merely said to myself that is where he should be from his past results.

So Gibby's critics should shut up because he had one of the fastest high school 2 milers in history running close to Olympic standards in the steeplechase 4 years later?

Also, stating the fact that it is 5 seconds faster than last year is stupid. It's the United States steeple chase. The past few years the event has not had the depth or high caliber athletes participating in it.

Name me a bunch of US college guys (other than the short sprints etc.), where they are on the verge of hitting the A standard and in fact are #2 US? How many other 8:40s HS guys have done that (including the 8:30 hs guys)? AND, this was not done in a "Stanford" meet but in a championship race - no pacers, every place counts, no pros. I am really having a hard time thinking of a whole lot of them but since you think it is nothing, I expect you to list all the 8:40 guys and show me that many of them do this.

It is 5 seconds faster than the guy who dominated US steeple list last year - Multiple "A" marks -- again, show me the comparables. Is it 60% of the 8:40 studs, 50%, 33% 20%, 10%, 5%? Every time you write more it is even more apparent how good this is.

It didn't take Gibby 4 years to get an 8:44 hs kid to a 8:28 steeple, it took him 2 hears to take an 8:48 stippler to 8:28. You can't blame Gibby for Forys 1st three years.