D1 vs. D3 coaching

questionator1 wrote:

Do you think on the whole that D3 coaches are better at developing talent than D1 coaches (who may be more concerned with recruiting stellar talent in the first place)?

As a former DIII athlete, I would say no. DIII has some great coaches and some bad ones, as does DI and DII. Seeing "development" of these kids at the DIII level is perceived to be more common because you will hear more about the 4:30/9:40 guy going on to run 8:35/14:40 if he's running DIII than if he's DI. If he's DIII, he went from being a decent recruit to a national caliber runner. If he's DI, he went from being a nobody to still being a nobody. I would guess that there are a lot more guys like this in DI than DIII.

Taking a look at guys I used to run against in high school says that kids who went on to run DI vs DIII both improve in general, but there's way too much variation from person to person and coach to coach to really judge one track versus the other. However, I would guess there is a significant difference between running after college. A lot of faster DIII guys are still running, while a lot of the faster DI guys stopped either midway through college or immediately after.

I think it's more like whether or not you "click" with the coach and also if he/she is good.

I know a lot of DI kids who were worked to injury and quit and DIII who improved.

It seems that with my very limited sample there are happier DIII kids than DI.

Do you mind sharing what d3 some of your former competitors/teammates are currently at? The guys you said have shown the good improvement to ~14:40.

I ask because I am a 4:30/9:30 guy who has decided to go middle of the pack d1 but I'm not sure if it's the best move for me.

That's the sort of progress I had at a DIII school. I ran 4:32/9:36 in high school and under the tutelage of a good coach, with great team mates I went on to run 4:10/8:19/14:34

If you're a 4:30 kid coming out of high school, you need to look to where you can get the best education. You won't be getting any money from a D1 with a 4:30, and you won't be getting athletics money from a DIII, period.

I found a school that had the exact bachelors program I wanted, with experts in the field teaching at their university, and running in college was an afterthought. It was a great experience, and I'm glad I had it, but it wasn't part of the plan.

I went on to be a weekend warrior on the rooads, and won a handful of local 5ks for several years after that.

I think it's much more about the runner's dedication than the coach, assuming he isn't actively bad. For example, I've heard from former North Central runners that Al Carius is a VERY hands-off coach, and he'll let you slack off or run yourself into the ground if you want. What makes schools like NCC great isn't revolutionary coaching or great recruiting, but just having a dedicated group of guys who're willing to put in the miles, who train hard, and who really really want to succeed.

You aren't going to improve yourself as a runner just because you go train under a good coach; it requires real dedication on your own part. I've seen plenty of great high school runners do jack shit in college because they're just not dedicated, even though they ran under an award winning coach.

In all fairness, I don't attribute my or my teammates' lack of improvement to lack of work ethic, I just think that our coaching is a "one size fits all" approach that simply does not fit me. And my coach cannot/will not change his philosophy out of stubbornness, laziness, or whatever. I just had gotten the feel that D1 coaches can't really be bothered to tailor training to individual needs, unless that individual is running at the national level.

And to the other poster, I have friends at the NESCAC and UAA schools that have been running well.

Your D1 school is mid pack for a reason. I don't know what you expected before you went there.

yagtash wrote: A lot of faster DIII guys are still running, while a lot of the faster DI guys stopped either midway through college or immediately after.

This is big. If you're mediocre in high school and don't immediately show a lot of potential in college, you won't get much attention from your coach or your teammates at most DI schools. As a result, it will be easier to not train as hard, get discouraged, or burnt out from trying to train with the recruits who are a lot more talented than you. That often leads to guys not staying on the team, or just not developing in the way they could (even guys who were studs in high school but struggle early on).

If you're at a DIII school as a 9:30-9:40 guy, you, your coach and your teammates immediately see the potential for you to become a real leader on the team and to run at the national level. The expectations and beliefs of those around you do a lot to keep you motivated and create an environment where you are much more likely to stay with it and thrive.

Every now and then you'll see a 9:30 guy go to a D1 program and develop into a sub 14 guy, helped by the fact that expectations are raised and that he's trying to hang on to guys that are at a really high level. But i think that's the exception much more than the rule, and more often kids will burn out or just not enjoy it that much because the coach and team aren't that invested in them.

That's the real reason DIII is going to develop your average 4:20+/9:20+ guy better than DI, not the coaching. There are great coaches and shitty coaches in DI and DIII alike, its more about how you as a runner are going to fit into the training environment at a given school based on your ability level and to some extent (though less than people tend to think I'd say) your personality.

DIII coaches are expected to coach anybody who walks in the door. This difference in attitude is why average runners can improve - the coaches in DIII, on average, have much more experience working w/ runners of varying talents. This is not uniformly true, but is generally the case.

DIII is now about as competitive as a stronger DI conference. So whereas a DI coach could win a good conference (ACC, BigEast, Ivy) with marginal talent, they are really expected to shoot for the stars, and so are focused on producing DI national caliber athletes. With very few exceptions, a 9:40/4:30 high school athlete will not end up a DI AA.

However this same athlete could be a very successful DI conference level athlete (with the right coaching), which is roughly equivalent to being a DIII AA. A DIII coach wins big plaudits for generating AAs, whereas a DI coach might get a mention for producing an all-conference athlete.

So it would seem that DI/DIII for the marginal athlete is a function of the difference incentives and motivations of DI vs DIII athletes.

It varies a lot based on the coach. I went DIII as a 4:30/9:45 guy and ended up an 8:50/15:25 guy. I had a few "flashes" of greater success, but had a lot of injuries and things that perhaps my coach could have helped with if he was more hands-on. I probably would have gotten faster had I gone to a mid-range DI school (or a DIII school with a different coach) so obviously your mileage may vary.

I know a 9:10 kid who did not get much faster at a top DI school, a 9:30 guy who improved a lot in DIII, and a few 4:20 guys who improved a lot in DI. It depends on the coach and the athlete. I was a pretty experienced runner already as a freshman, in terms of training and stuff. I'd already ran 80 miles a week as a senior in high school, so the workout we did in college were not a big challenge. I saw guys on my team who were a lot less experienced improve more, since going to 70mpw or whatever was a big jump for them