Western Carolina

Depending on major, Western Carolina has some highly distinguished faculty (e.g. the history department) and academic programs that will prepare you for graduate level studies, as long as you take the initiative to place yourself in challenging 400-level courses. As for the distance running program, Western is not your best option, for the very reason that it is led by one of the most apathetic, ignorant, and hard-headed men I have ever had the unfortunate opportunity to run under (notice I didn’t say coached by), Danny Williamson.

What is my main point of contention with his methods? Try running distance races without actually running any distance... sound like a good plan? You know the distance runner's pyramid, advocated in some shape of form by all the distance knowledge giants, Daniels, Lydiard, Salazar, where the base of the pyramid consists of easy, aerobic, base running? Well, somewhere Williamson, from what I understand an unremarkable high school 400m runner himself who has probably never ran the distance of a college cross country race, got the brilliant idea to cut base runs and replace it with speed-work! That’s right, speedwork in summer, speedwork in December, speed, speed, speed, so go ahead and forget running more than one or two tempos (ironically, the bread and butter of just about every other true distance runner in the world) per year. In high school, I had several running coaches, who knew little about the sport and what workouts to run, but they acknowledged their incompetency (as neither runner nor coach ever really can call themselves an expert, but only continue to learn by trial and error), and so we got along quite alright when I introduced Daniel’s concepts or those I picked up from other teams. But Williamson, while never actually winning a SOCON XC championship, somehow presumes that his methods are infallible.

Naturally then, when I questioned what everyone else was already wondering, why we take an 8 minute rest before doing Williamson’s beloved 400m with 150 kick at the end of all track workouts (which themselves never extended over a mile repeat, and even that quite rarely), he looked at me as to how I had the nerve to question his workout. Why would anyone think a 30sec rest before a 400m kick would be more relevant to running a 12 ½ lap 5k race! How stupid of me, thinking about the law of specificity as regards our training! Why, if you improve your 400 time by five seconds, an incredible feat for any experienced runner, that’s five seconds off your 5k time! Nevermind becoming more aerobically fit so that you can shave five seconds off each lap and run a minute faster… hmmmm?? How dare I slack off or question aloud why we did heavy weights on recovery days (before heading out for 10 miles “easy”). I mean it’s not like Gerry Lindgren or the African distance runners didn’t lift a single weight to break 14, did they?! Surely, I was just being lazy and unintelligible for wanting to run more, and sprint and lift weights less…..

As I once read in an article written by Salazar (which I so badly wanted to tape to Williamson’s door), every hard day should be followed by an easy or recovery day, unless you are a sprinter. Expect to be treated as such at WCU though, where the weekly schedule was always Monday, Tuesday, Friday, AND Saturday hard, or sometimes three hard days in a four day span before a holiday break. And expect this year round, with little meaningful periodization of training or long term planning. Injuries are rampant, and you are made to feel like a disappointment for being injured. Somehow Williamson sees no correlation between his lack of recovery days and the high ratio of injuries and burnouts. Four out of the six freshmen that I came to WCU with either quit or saw little to no growth from their high school race times while in college. One year, both are “prized” incoming freshmen quit, and a walk-on who came from a high school program with great coaching remained sidelined with injuries.

Perhaps most infuriating to me was how Williamson treats his athletes, many of which are my friends. Williamson’s coaching style is a cross between fear and intimidation in the matter of a military style boot camp and an all-out-all-of-the-time, never back down Rocky or Prefontaine temperament. Clearly, Williamson has spent a little too much time watching running movies and Nike commercials where the “never take a day off” mentality is all it takes to take a last place team to nationals. Someone desperately needs to tell that man that “training smarter” is almost always better than “training harder.” In addition to the number of burnouts we had on the team by the end of the season (and by that I mean the Championship portion), our team had an uncanny ability to perform some really tough workouts the week of or before and then always fizzle in the following race. It seemed that Williamson’s method of getting the most in every practice, encouraging intra-team racing almost every day, was teaching us to have no racing “gear” come race day. If this were Oregon’s team or the army, I would expect to be treated like a number. But it is not, it is a lower D1 XC team with no reputation for distance running to sustain, and where no full scholarships or anything close to that are being awarded to hard working scholar-athletes (indeed, my family paid out of pocket for me to go to Western, not the other way around). This is all the more reason to build up your athletes rather than tear them down. The fundamental lesson that Williamson remains ignorant to is that the more fun you have, the faster you run. That is proven science, not just a cliché quote, the sort that Williamson enjoyed berating us with in addition to telling us how his grandma or high school daughters could run faster.

So feel free to make your own decision about Western. But I hope this informational semi-rant helps other serious distance runners not fall into the same trap I did by signing to a team that pretends to welcome you until they have you ensnared in their lackluster and incompetent, over-inflated and underfunded excuse for a distance running program. There is no excuse for why a man like Williamson is coaching at the D1 level; it is rather pathetic, actually. However, this will continue to be overlooked, as Williamson’s marketing skills continue to fool the local community, athletic directors, and potential recruits into believing that he cares about his athletes and that for him, academics come before athletics. While he frequently makes such trite statements, there can be little doubt as to the seriousness of his convictions. As the patriarch of the program, he surrounds himself with like-minded staff that will imitate his personality, not question his competency, and serve as an extension of his hard-headed coaching methods. As these non-distance oriented assistants do the recruiting, the recruiting classes consist of highly incompatible groups of runners with varying levels of interest. Williamson places quantity over quality, so the more recruits, despite the high percentage of those that will quit, the better in his eyes. Williamson takes no time to learn anything about the potential athlete or if their best interest really lies at Western; all he concerns himself with is their MileSplit times. I honestly never got the impression he really gave a damn about me or anyone else. But I no longer blame him for my unsatisfying running career at WCU; some people you encounter in this world are just going to think that their way is the right way, period. Quite the contrary, I have grown from my experience. I thank Williamson for helping me learn how to deal with such individuals, as well as what type of impact I believe a coach, and mentor, should have in the lives of young athletes.

Western distance alum wrote:
Depending on major, Western Carolina has some highly distinguished faculty (e.g. the history department) and academic programs that will prepare you for graduate level studies, as long as you take the initiative to place yourself in challenging 400-level courses. As for the distance running program, Western is not your best option, for the very reason that it is led by one of the most apathetic, ignorant, and hard-headed men I have ever had the unfortunate opportunity to run under (notice I didn’t say coached by), Danny Williamson.
What is my main point of contention with his methods? Try running distance races without actually running any distance... sound like a good plan? You know the distance runner's pyramid, advocated in some shape of form by all the distance knowledge giants, Daniels, Lydiard, Salazar, where the base of the pyramid consists of easy, aerobic, base running? Well, somewhere Williamson, from what I understand an unremarkable high school 400m runner himself who has probably never ran the distance of a college cross country race, got the brilliant idea to cut base runs and replace it with speed-work! That’s right, speedwork in summer, speedwork in December, speed, speed, speed, so go ahead and forget running more than one or two tempos (ironically, the bread and butter of just about every other true distance runner in the world) per year. In high school, I had several running coaches, who knew little about the sport and what workouts to run, but they acknowledged their incompetency (as neither runner nor coach ever really can call themselves an expert, but only continue to learn by trial and error), and so we got along quite alright when I introduced Daniel’s concepts or those I picked up from other teams. But Williamson, while never actually winning a SOCON XC championship, somehow presumes that his methods are infallible.
Naturally then, when I questioned what everyone else was already wondering, why we take an 8 minute rest before doing Williamson’s beloved 400m with 150 kick at the end of all track workouts (which themselves never extended over a mile repeat, and even that quite rarely), he looked at me as to how I had the nerve to question his workout. Why would anyone think a 30sec rest before a 400m kick would be more relevant to running a 12 ½ lap 5k race! How stupid of me, thinking about the law of specificity as regards our training! Why, if you improve your 400 time by five seconds, an incredible feat for any experienced runner, that’s five seconds off your 5k time! Nevermind becoming more aerobically fit so that you can shave five seconds off each lap and run a minute faster… hmmmm?? How dare I slack off or question aloud why we did heavy weights on recovery days (before heading out for 10 miles “easy”). I mean it’s not like Gerry Lindgren or the African distance runners didn’t lift a single weight to break 14, did they?! Surely, I was just being lazy and unintelligible for wanting to run more, and sprint and lift weights less…..
As I once read in an article written by Salazar (which I so badly wanted to tape to Williamson’s door), every hard day should be followed by an easy or recovery day, unless you are a sprinter. Expect to be treated as such at WCU though, where the weekly schedule was always Monday, Tuesday, Friday, AND Saturday hard, or sometimes three hard days in a four day span before a holiday break. And expect this year round, with little meaningful periodization of training or long term planning. Injuries are rampant, and you are made to feel like a disappointment for being injured. Somehow Williamson sees no correlation between his lack of recovery days and the high ratio of injuries and burnouts. Four out of the six freshmen that I came to WCU with either quit or saw little to no growth from their high school race times while in college. One year, both are “prized” incoming freshmen quit, and a walk-on who came from a high school program with great coaching remained sidelined with injuries.
Perhaps most infuriating to me was how Williamson treats his athletes, many of which are my friends. Williamson’s coaching style is a cross between fear and intimidation in the matter of a military style boot camp and an all-out-all-of-the-time, never back down Rocky or Prefontaine temperament. Clearly, Williamson has spent a little too much time watching running movies and Nike commercials where the “never take a day off” mentality is all it takes to take a last place team to nationals. Someone desperately needs to tell that man that “training smarter” is almost always better than “training harder.” In addition to the number of burnouts we had on the team by the end of the season (and by that I mean the Championship portion), our team had an uncanny ability to perform some really tough workouts the week of or before and then always fizzle in the following race. It seemed that Williamson’s method of getting the most in every practice, encouraging intra-team racing almost every day, was teaching us to have no racing “gear” come race day. If this were Oregon’s team or the army, I would expect to be treated like a number. But it is not, it is a lower D1 XC team with no reputation for distance running to sustain, and where no full scholarships or anything close to that are being awarded to hard working scholar-athletes (indeed, my family paid out of pocket for me to go to Western, not the other way around). This is all the more reason to build up your athletes rather than tear them down. The fundamental lesson that Williamson remains ignorant to is that the more fun you have, the faster you run. That is proven science, not just a cliché quote, the sort that Williamson enjoyed berating us with in addition to telling us how his grandma or high school daughters could run faster.
So feel free to make your own decision about Western. But I hope this informational semi-rant helps other serious distance runners not fall into the same trap I did by signing to a team that pretends to welcome you until they have you ensnared in their lackluster and incompetent, over-inflated and underfunded excuse for a distance running program. There is no excuse for why a man like Williamson is coaching at the D1 level; it is rather pathetic, actually. However, this will continue to be overlooked, as Williamson’s marketing skills continue to fool the local community, athletic directors, and potential recruits into believing that he cares about his athletes and that for him, academics come before athletics. While he frequently makes such trite statements, there can be little doubt as to the seriousness of his convictions. As the patriarch of the program, he surrounds himself with like-minded staff that will imitate his personality, not question his competency, and serve as an extension of his hard-headed coaching methods. As these non-distance oriented assistants do the recruiting, the recruiting classes consist of highly incompatible groups of runners with varying levels of interest. Williamson places quantity over quality, so the more recruits, despite the high percentage of those that will quit, the better in his eyes. Williamson takes no time to learn anything about the potential athlete or if their best interest really lies at Western; all he concerns himself with is their MileSplit times. I honestly never got the impression he really gave a damn about me or anyone else. But I no longer blame him for my unsatisfying running career at WCU; some people you encounter in this world are just going to think that their way is the right way, period. Quite the contrary, I have grown from my experience. I thank Williamson for helping me learn how to deal with such individuals, as well as what type of impact I believe a coach, and mentor, should have in the lives of young athletes.

Amen..so Danny hasn't changed since I and many others made the mistake of going there..don't forget the time he put a FL assistant coach on the team not vetting him, and he turned out to be a full blown convicted pedophile?? Or as we are warming up in our colors before conf meet he and his gal get in a full blown fight pushing, shoving and screaming at each other, of all peeps to break them up is apps assistant coach..or how he ate his fruit cocktail when he sat in at lunch w/us

. .slurpee slurp...

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