Ohio State University

I think that Robert is gonna coach both this coming fall. I am not positive, but I heard from a pretty reliable source that Gary was now coaching both

Asst. AD Archie Griffin, Rogers, Gary, & Asst. Coach Jack Warner are still in the search process. Robert Gary will not 'officially' coach the women this fall although he will help a great deal with whoever ends up with the position. Unfortunately, OSU has a history of not giving the resources to many women's non-revenue sports and they have gone through many very good coaches without giving them the freedom to succeed. There have alos been a few less-than-stellar coaches as well. I hope the new hire will be given a chance because Ohio is truly a very good state in regards to high school distance running talent and depth.

Ohio State HAS given many great resources to women's non-revenue sports: hence the addition of women's crew, women's ice hockey, among other SCHOLARSHIP sports. These athletes should be honored and lucky to have such opportunities.

If you re-read my post, I said SOME non-revenue sports. Example: Mamie Rollins, head coach for many years, who arguably had some decent success (although most did not think too highly of her)had a salary over $25,000 less than her male counterpart who didn't do squat with the program at the time. Women's cross/track recruiting budget was almost non-existent compared to the men. Travel budget, etc. followed suit as well. In addition, the women's assistants rarely made $20,000 and had fewer assistants than the men. Add this poor tradition of support, and performance, to a present head coach who is known for barely tolerating distance runners, let alone open pursestrings to get some top athletes, and you have a setting for failure regardless of how good the coach is. Please don't make this a title IX issue, because it is not. The support is better administratively, and as you said some programs are getting a lot such as hockey, synch. swimming, crew, etc. This distance support is barely better for men, thus the job Robert Gary is doing is simply phenomenal. Robert does NOT run with the team and is doing an outstanding job. He has a fine crop of young runners and it will be interesting to see how they progress in the next few years.

There is not much being done at Ohio State by Robert Gary, with regards to coaching duties, that would warrent the phrase "phenomenal." He has had very, very good talented runners who are running well, not amazing but well. I hear a lot about the job his is doing. He has done some very good things but nothing that is not being done all over the country by numerous other coaches. Ohio State gets the best runners usually that stay in state. Having three runners around 30:00 is a good accomplishment but nothing near phenomenal. This seems pretty harsh but I get sick reading these post, on other message boards, stating that OSU has it tough. There are plenty of schools out there with a situation that is worse. Best of luck to OSU and Robert Gary though, OSU is getting back to a respectable level for their conference and own schools athletic tradition.

Ohio Runner, I have trouble at times conveying my thoughts on a message board. I forget that you have to place everything in context. I called Gary's recent job as 'phenomenal' in comparison to OSU's distance history and the reputation of the current head coach. OSU has had some solid individuals (Byers, Klassa, Croghan), but until Chris England of a few years ago, OSU had only one runner in their history breaking 30 minutes (so 3 young ones at once is phenomenal 'for OSU'). Remember, Russ Rogers allocates very little money toward distance runners. So, Gary's runners who are talented and running 'well', are approaching 'amazing' in the context of OSU. These things are being done all over the US, but few with a head coach who is anti-distance. As for your contention that OSU gets Ohio's best, nothing could be further from the truth. How many of the sub 9:10's have gone to OSU? Few to none. Going way back (Sharsu, Zishka, Fry, Kennedy, White, Bogenshultz, Ward, Mueller, etc) have all gone out of state. In fact, most of the present solid guys are from out of state. Thanks for calling me on this. Yes, phenomenal is too strong, but I am comparing it to a dim history that has always seemed it should be a player nationally with the strong hs situation.

I wrote that OSU gets the best guys usually that stay in state. JJ Oriely, Rob Myers, Andy Gracius, Jacob Maccully, Derrick Butler, Ian Conner, amongst others have gone to OSU recently. The list is not big because most of the top guys do leave but lets look at other schools and who they got. Toledo got Hapte, Akron got Inamerelli, Kent got Sjostrum and Barniv, OU has gotten Andy Smith and a couple others who faded away. In fact, it appears that Miami is the only school that OSU has to contend with in state. We all know who they have gotten, probably a little more than OSU in all because of Miami's tradition. Bottom line, OSU is still getting the best recruits in Ohio schools along with Miami. OSU is not an expensive school and probably is not too much of a financial burnden to attend.

Ohio Runner, I agree completely, but take it a step farther. In most of the other top high school states, the big state school gets at least 50% of the studs versus the rest of the nation. This simply hasn't been happening at OSU. The guys you named are good solid guys, but not the big m/2m/XC national standouts that have been lost to other states. The women have been getting less than 10% of top in-state hs talent. Yes OSU doesn't have much of an in-state fight for talent, but they should think nationally if they are going to catch up with some of the other OSU sports in tradition and prestige & Gary is the first guy in quite a while to at least give some hope that this can be obtained.

Please believe me because I am truly "in the know". Gary single-handedly resurrected that distance program from the dead. And he is doing a phenomenal job. I'll give you 3 reasons why Gary is going to start being offered serious jobs elsewhere. 1. Russ Rogers is one of the most hated old-timers in Track and Field and could absolutely not care less about distance runners. 2. Robert has never had access to more than 3 scholarships in his area and with the exception of this outdoor season, has torn up the Big 10 on the track at the conference meets. 3. He has gotten that 2nd tier (because the studs demand fulls and Gary don't have it) of Ohio guys by selling himself and the program, but more importantly, he has and will continue to keep them excited about running (this is what the other MAC schools fail to do: Miami the biggest culprit). I hope he keeps up the PHENOMENAL work, but really, I hope he takes another job someplace that has the set-up to be a National cross country team.

After reading too about the supposed shortcomings on the womens programs at Ohio State I have two remarks. #1 is that if Russ is short cutting the woman somehow (probably to play golf with) then that would NOT surprise me. #2 However, if you want to look at a place where title 9 has really shined, then look no further than Ohio State. They are a model for increasing womens sports to get equal, instead of simply dropping mens. Their womens sports budgets are very much in line with the men (except for football: and rightly so). They have 36 Varsity sports. That too is phenomenal!

Reality, You too are 'in the know'. Everything you said is right on. As I said in previous posts, Gary's job is exceptional because of the circumstances with the head coach and lack of history at OSU which you confirmed. One thing, Gary has not done this with ALL 2nd tier athletes. Wasn't Glas (junior 10K champ) a Foot Locker finalist. Myers was also a 4:09/1:51/X-C champ who was highly recruited. I believe there is at least one more frosh with a big hs reputation. In fact, the story goes that the two big frosh(both from out of state by the way) had verbally committed only to have Russ pull the promise and offer a lot less $ than originally told. Both guys came anyway due to Gary's reputation and recruiting. And for those who don''t think recruting is the biggest part of coaching to get a sniff at the big-time, see all the average coaches building a big reputation with seasoned 25 year old foreign athletes.

Tha rumor about Glaz and Fisher (ran 8:09 for 3k this year after having a stress fracture from high school) is NOT true. They are both on scholarship. My "2nd tier" comment speaks more to Ohio kids (as mentioned before). Myers is definitely a stud out of HS, but guys like Olinger, Penza, O'Riley, and even Connor aren't considered National studs. None of them broke 9:17, 4:16 and Gary is going against Michigan, Wisco, MSU, etc. Compared to them Gary is way behind in talent. In state however, the talent he has gathered has exceeded all the other schools (Miami is close though). I just hope he doesn't get stuck with the women's program because it would be way too much work to keep the men going so well! As a side, Gary is organizing a steeple clinic for a Saturday in December. I'm assisting him in putting the manual together and it looks like it is going to be pretty cool.

Reality,

You say Gary had no more than 3 scholarships until this outdoor season...do you think that's unfair? There are 12.6 scholarships allowed by the NCAA (very few schools have financial resources to allow 12.6). There are 20 events at the NCAA Championships (outdoor) with distance accounting for 4-5 (20-25%). That falls right in line with the allocated scholarships for distance.

I'm suprised they actually receive that much from Russ. He USED to be a sprinting guy so I wouldn't see why everyone would be so shocked that he keeps more of the scholarships for sprints/field events. It's easier for the those guys to double=more bang for your buck.

I'm not sticking up for Russ. Just sayin'...OSU doesn't have it that bad.

Reality, I was not trying to give the impression that Glas & Fisher are walk-ons. Simply, I have the understanding that they were recruited thinking a full scholarship was offered, only to have Russ pull the plug and offer partials. That puts the recruiting coach (Gary) in a terrible position, but he pulled it off & kept their trust.

Statsman, I can only speak for myself. I am not sold on sinking too much money into distance kids due to the nature of track being sprint biased. Three scholarships may be appropriate, however, it would very difficult to compete with the Stanfords, Arkansas, & Colorados who use much more of their allotment for distance in the sport of Cross-country. I certainly am not shocked that a sprint guy would use scholarships that way, and OSU doesn't have it bad, but less distance money than many (nationally) and a coach who doesn't hide his disdain for distance runners makes building a distance crew a little tougher.

Glaz and Fischer are both on full, you can't get more than that and nothing was pulled (ever). I agree that 3 is a close to perfect amount if you're building a successful TEAM. My problem comes with it seems like the distance runners and more aptly, the throwers are pulling their weight way more than the sprinters. I understand the head coach golfs and that is about it. On a National level and even in the Big 10 where there are 5 or 6 programs, where the head coach is also the cross country coach, that allott more than 5+ in the distance area. Surely, you can understand how having 5+ scholarships vs. 3 scholarships is a fairly big advantage. Think if Gary had 5 Dan Glaz's???

Reality, You obviously know what you are talking about. Don't forget Russ' womanizing young co-eds when he isn't on the golf course. For those who don't know, Rogers is most famous for being accused of manipulating the olypic 4 X 100 realy team according to who allowed him to be their agent for the European circuit. Also, I have seen a few messages on this board that Gary uses his team as some others do for his own gain. Robert rarely, if ever, runs with his team. He gives them his full attention and trains on his own time earlier or later in the day. Based on the training of Gary's coach, Lee LaBadie (a sub 4 guy himself in his day), the OSU runners are progressing on limited milage, but little 'junk' runs. Reality, can you add to this?

Glasz and Fischer are on fulls??? If that is true than those guys are way overpaid!

Dont judge those two guys yet. They were only freshmen remember. Glaz did quite well I would venture to say after some huge set backs during cross. They will turn it on this year, just wait and see.

Thanks for the info. guys. You provided some good opinions that were backed by facts. I learned a lot and were not insulted during the process. It is refreshing when this give/take can occur. Good luck with your running and/or coaching and we'll watch to see how the OSU guys progress.