OAC MEN 2012 XC

What's wrong with Capital? As an alum, I thought with a new coach and all of his D1 recruiting background, the teams would be improving. I mean having a distance coach who was there only for practice (as the previous coach was)and now having the track coach there as director of all programs should lead to a new era of prosperity. Now, it looks as if they are worse than ever. I hear they have a rookie CC coach with no coaching background as head CC coach and a former athlete that did little for the program running the show under the guidance of the Director of Track. Are Capital's budget and AD so bad that they don't (or can't)know who to hire or should the school just do away with these programs because it just does not care about the sports and lets them sink? Is Capital just desperate for student numbers and keeps programs around to bring in students? Is Otterbein going to continue to sink because they now have Capital's AD? The story is the former AD did nothing to assist any of the men's programs with recruiting while she was there and they are all sinking fast. But, she was good at letting go 13 of 18 head coaching positions over two years.

Denison's new head coach already recruited well with his track and CC programs - why can't Capital? At least make a shot for top 6 - but this won't happen for a long time. It's frustrating.

Ohio Northern, comfortable gap, JCU, even bigger gap. Everybody else.

Mueller, Janosko... big gap... everybody else, starting with a few ONU guys.

ONU wrote:

Ohio Northern, comfortable gap, JCU, even bigger gap. Everybody else.

Mueller, Janosko... big gap... everybody else, starting with a few ONU guys.

That's about right. ONU would have to mess up for anyone to catch them. They aren't out of JCU's league though. JCU would have to mess up big time to not be top 2.

Janosko will AT LEAST make Muller work hard. The rest of the All-OAC runners will be mostly JCU and ONU runners with a few random guys mixed in, such as Caleb Ellis, one or two Muskies, and possibly a Mount runner or two. I could definitely see Marietta's duo of Calebs getting 1st and 3rd.

Is ONU good enough to make nationals? Past Muller/Janesko, is anyone else going to go individually?

I don't think ONU is national material. They just don't have a true front runner. Maybe if they had Muller on their team.

I think Muller and Jan 1.2.

Then it is really up in the air between ONU runners, maybe 2 or 3 muskingum runner (who would of thought that, ever). and some JCU runners and a Wilimingtons lead runner to round out the top 10.

It seems it will be a battle with Mount and Muskingum for 3rd. And then WC BW and Burg will be fight for 4,5,6.

Women

ONU, JCU, Mount, BW, Wilmington

Steinbrunner, Weaver, Parlette, Kreuz, Reese

1970s Cap Alum wrote:

Are Capital's budget and AD so bad that they don't (or can't)know who to hire .

Short Answer: Yes.

Long Answer: The budget for Capital's XC team and the compensation offered to the coaches is low enough that nobody in the central Ohio area will coach for them. The most prestigious hiring they have had in the past 8 years was Dublin Scioto's former girl's coach. He was an unpaid volunteer his first two years.

Speaking from experience (volunteer asst. coach for a few years), at least 50% of Capital's distance coaches were unpaid volunteers and a great deal of Capital's track coaches are volunteers. While I was there, I had a career and coaching was a side gig, which meant taking time off of work to attend meets, go to practice and run events, much less recruit. I loved interacting with the kids, but the painful reality is I could only give them so much and I needed to focus on my career, since Capital certainly was never going to pay me.

Man, the only reason the prior coach and I were there were because we were both alumni who were willing to accept the abhorrent pay to try to make the team better. It's sad that I take a sense of pride in knowing that we've SCORED in every meet since 2007.

It is amazing what competent coaching/recruiting can do for your program. Look at Muskingum for the prime example. I've followed the OAC for 15 years and for the VAST majority of that time, the Muskies have been cellar dwellers. They've occasionally had individuals, but in both track and xc they've been poor. Now, they have a good coach, who cares enough about the program to do a good job and lo and behold, they're relevant again.

Otterbein is the other extreme. Historically have been good, and now...embarrassing. In 2009 they were 8th in the region with their top 5 returning. The next year 18th, and last year didn't even run.

I'm not optimistic about Capital. Have they ever been good in cross country? Last year they had a very good girl, and they've had some quality half milers in the recent past, but if as you say, they have an inexperienced coach and a director who doesn't care, it's not looking promising.

Otterbein's coach needs to resign immediately. Absolutely embarrassing. Dave Lehman needs fired too for hiring this unqualified guy simply because they're buddies. They have destroyed a really solid program.

I long for the good old days when Otterbein was respectable. It was always entertaining when their guys got on here and talked trash. On a serious note however, if their AD cared at all about cross country/track, she would clean house. Before their last coach left the team had truly turned the corner. Now, like 3 years later, they are stiiiinky.

Congrats to Mount for putting it together at the right time. I had given the title to Northern, but the Raiders ran very, very well.

On the girls side, Steinbrunner from Northern has to be the most dominant female runner the OAC has seen in at least a decade.

OAC alum8 wrote:

Well, less than a month away.

Looks like it will be a tight team race if ONU doesn't get together. JCU could sneak up and take the by surprise.

Mount looks like garbage, Wilimington and Muskingum are a bit shocking though.

Otterbein and Cap are just terrible.

Marietta could also be up there.

overall it will go

ONU

JCU

WC

MusU

MC

Mount

BW

HU

OU

CU

With Muller "running" and winning.

I bet you feel like an idiot now... "Mount looks like garbage" They didn't just win, they crushed the field. Just goes to show the early season just plain does not matter.

The greatest track/cc recruiter who knew nothing about these sports but could recruit like no other( and his wife baked great cookies for the ride home for us recruits). There are great coaches who can't recruit, or after so many years of doing it would rather finally have a home life than trying to out hustle the other OAC schools in the bidding war for Ohio athletes - which we really used to enjoy (just remembering the Dispatch article about a female Otterbein athlete who was repackaged 3 times by us and then said hers was an athletic scholarship).

There are also more academic standards at Otterbein than there were a few years ago as the president wants to be the Denison (29 ACT average) of the Columbus area. And, the AD wants tougher academic standards for athletes in order to compete. To be straight, most of the OAC schools are not academic bastions, allowing more low academic athletes in. While OSU averages 28 for the ACT for an incoming class the highest OAC school is probably at 23 for a whole class, it's gonna be tough for the Otters to keep in the mix for any sports as their standards continue to toughen.

Look at Capital. Before the new AD came in (now ours), teams overall were competing - especially football. This year, Otterbein lost to Mount by 52 and Crapital by 62 (and Cap hit the playoffs several years in a row). Later Otters - track and CC won't ever be the same - no one could recruit like Welsh.

3 questions? Does Mount continue to ride this wave to the top 3 at the regional meet? If so does the commeettee take them if they make it to 3rd? What does the point spread from 2-3 need to be for the commettee to take them? Can't wait to see how they do at Anderson in two weeks.

First off, mount wont be able to cut the course at regional's, so theyre not going to do anything, there win was a fluke.

they're pretty good for cheating.

Did Mount really cut the course? That would certainly make sense, as most of their top guys improved DRAMATICALLY at the conference meet, while their usual #1 was behind the rest of the team.

From what I've heard and what I saw at the meet, yes. It was bad, there was a major lack of officials. It was unbelievable. And it stinks because you can't prove it, but it was SO obvious. I'm shocked Wilmingtons Head Coach didn't say anything.

I know some lead runners just couldn't believe how bad they were cutting. Think about it, if you cut 200-400 meters off your race.. thats almost a minute, if not more.

It's dumb, and they did not deserve to win.

First off Mount Union did cut the course but they were within their right to do so. It was Wilmington's joke of a head coach who decided to mark their course like a high school dual meet (the course was also a high school dual meet course, I mean the woods loop there is as far away from a college cross country meet as you can find). There was no flagging and the course hadn't been re painted since their invite 2 weeks prior. The rule states that you are allowed to run off the a single line (which there were very few of to begin with) by a certain number of meters and still be on the course. So because there was no flagging and very few lines every person had the right to run basically wherever they wanted. Your probably mad that your team didn't do that and it probably sounds like you are a part of northern who suffered from poor course conditions (injuries and falls). What this comes down to is that Wilmington's coach put no work into the course and that the meet should never have been there in the first place. Championship meets need to be double lines throughout to prevent this stuff. Hopefully the coaches will learn their lesson but they probably won't.

Every team was cutting the course. If you look at mount 1-10 have steadily increased all year. the way cross country is supposed to be, when you have teams like john carroll running so many meets or northern peaking early on fasyt courses. Mount is the team who did it right, Wilmington also has done this, slow progression over the year. Obviously ONU and JCU don't have near the coaching they do, Even Muskingum is stepping up. Mount also has the best returning squad next year by far, they do not lose their top 8 from OAC next year, 4 of them are already sub 26. the future could be great

Who is coaching the distance runners at Mount now?