Better Coach Pete Watson or Ryan Vanhoy

Ryan Vanhoy is having a great year and Pete Watson is not, but let's separate the facts from the fancy-- Vanhoy has a long way to go to catch Watson.

2nd place in the (weaker than weak) SEC is a great thing, but Watson took a mixed foreign and American team at Auburn (like Ole Miss) to a 5th place finish in the NCAA. Further, Watson has been very successful at UVA, regional cross country title, Kyle King, etc.

Vanhoy is a very good coach but struck GOLD with Jenkins and leveraged that into a team that had a bunch back at Ole Miss; added a 14:00 transfer and a sub 4 foreigner,and the team was 10th at Pre Nats.

I think Vanhoy will have more to show for in 10 years, but there are coaches right now who Vanhoy is better than that will have more to show in 10 years than he will.

Vanhoy by a mile (pun intended). I would argue Pete Watson is one of the worst coaches in the NCAA at developing talent. All those Canadian guys are.

Ryan has in a short time as a head coach done incredible things to develop talent, the main question is his recruiting but that seems to be going okay so far at Ole Miss. Had he stayed at Northeastern (and jenkins and doyle stayed) They were going to be a top 15 team at NCAAs that year. And in 2 quick years he has turned Ole Miss into national caliber team.

I'm sorry but all this jumping on the Vanhoy band wagon to praise him is a joke.

Let's consider another situation. Imagine if Furman university didn't renew Robert Gary's contract for this year because they decided he wasn't what they wanted. In comes a new coach ( a vanhoy esq guy). He replicates what Furman are doing this year and could be on the verge of making their first NCAA bid. Now, would LetsRun and its fickle posters be praising this new coach? He inherited a damn good program and the results happen for him. I very much doubt it!

Vanhoy is in exactly the same boat. He has inherited a good program that was always going to do well. Without the freshman class he already had he wouldn't be close to finishing 2nd. Yet he gets all this praise for quite frankly doing jack S@$T.

Ok he got a few transfers but one of them had already committed befor that. And yes, he did coach Jenkins to 13:18 but did he recruit him? No he inherited him as well.

He is following the Watson method perfectly. He goes to Auburn and as an assistant and boom head coach leaves and he inherits a program already Top 10 in the nation. Let's consider all this before we start praising someone who hasn't really started at the bottom and built the team up.

Fair play to him, he has played the coaching game well and got "success" from hardly doing much work.

Read my post...I say that he hasn't yet proven to be a good recruiter. But he has developed that talent. Jenkins, Doyle, Gallagher, and Sollowin all got better under him at NU and now the guys at Ole Miss are getting better. He still has a lot to prove in recruiting but the question posed was about 10 years in the future which means we need to speculate. I like what i have seen and have faith he will recruit well and develop that talent into a team going to nationals every year.

Fair enough. Your point is speculation. Unfortunately for Vanhoy he will not be given 10 years at Ole miss. He needs to have a good season through indoor and outdoor, then move on.

I say this because O'neal will hate all the attention Vanhoy is getting and will get rid of him. His ego is to big and Vanhoy will be a threat to him.

Could we see a Watson/Vanhoy partnership in the future? I think that's a better question.

Oh, I just love Watson-bashing threads!!!!

So much fun, popcorn, zealous defenders, and much much more!

Is anyone a worse coach than Gavin?

Eric Jenkins was already a sub 4 minute miler at Northeastern before VanBoy even met him. VanBoy inherited (thanks to Gavin Kennedy-former coach at Old Miss) two sub 9min high schoolers, a 3:45 runners from Ireland who just got back from Euro Cross, an Australian with similar credentials who had already graduated from an Australian college, a runner from the UK who ran in 8:20's in high school, and a U.S. Junior Nationals placer in the 10,000. What has VanBoy done but put his name on the former coaches door and take credit for all these great runners he is fortunate to have. If he is so great, why didn't Jenkins follow him. And if he is so great, why are the Old Miss girls so terrible under his coaching?

Everyone points to Jenkins as the only person who did anything at NU. Sure on the national stage he is but that program was just starting out and he improved a lot of runner while they were they. I named a few of them above. And sure he turned another guys recruits into a successful team but HE did it not Gavin Kennedy! As stated before he has a ways to go before he establishes himself as a great coach but for a guy who has 3 years of running his own team at 2 different places he has had a lot of success. Lets see where it goes.

O'neal also inherited a bunch of athletes from the former coach at Old Miss. The jumper, Ricky Robertson and sprinter Isiah Young, and pole vaulter Sam Kendricks. All these three have made O'neal a rich man and he did NOTHING to recruit, coach or develop them. Young was already an Olympian for goodness sakes. Kendricks was coached by his dad, as I understand, and Robertson was a wonderkind from highschool who jumped 7'3" in the eleventh grade. He was good for 25-30 points at the SEC championships every year.

br0ski wrote:

Vanhoy by a mile (pun intended). I would argue Pete Watson is one of the worst coaches in the NCAA at developing talent. All those Canadian guys are.

Ryan has in a short time as a head coach done incredible things to develop talent, the main question is his recruiting but that seems to be going okay so far at Ole Miss. Had he stayed at Northeastern (and jenkins and doyle stayed) They were going to be a top 15 team at NCAAs that year. And in 2 quick years he has turned Ole Miss into national caliber team.

As the one responsible for the QOD, I'm responsible for the hype. I think Vanhoy deserves it as it annoys me how people think the best coaches are at the best schools.

Let me state a few things. I like both Watson and Vanhoy. That beind said, I've got no idea if either of them is a good coach as to know that you really have to pay A LOT of attention. But the best coach in UNC in the last decade was my boy Chris Catton. Too bad he's moved on to married life like myself. The profession has lost two greats in myself and himself.

Catton coached 3 guys to sub 9 in 3 years at the HS level. He's now coaching a guy who would probably be Stanford's #3 but he' s not even running for the team. I was part of the greatest run in a sport in the history of the Ivy League (ten straight outright conference titles). How will the sport ever recover??

-Rojo

PS. Fan don't worry. Maybe Catton , JK and myself will start coaching again online. The college coaching lifestyle is draining and seems to lead to divorces.

PPS. Calm down people, this is a joke - sort of.

Vanhoy has a lot of maturity and growing up to do before he becomes a good coach.

He's been the luckiest guy in the world so far with inheriting Jenkins and the current crew at Ole Miss. At some point the house of cards will fall.

The Ole Miss program as a whole is a house of cards waiting to crumble.

I remember when the same thing was being said about UTEP.

notregistered wrote:

At some point the house of cards will fall.

The Ole Miss program as a whole is a house of cards waiting to crumble.

Congrats Ryan! you're on your way! you have goobers and jealous "peers" posting crap about how lucky you are.

Perhaps someone could give some insight into their coaching methods? Mileage, workouts, etc.

As a former athlete of each, one of the few, I would have to say VanHoy. The two of them were different in many ways. Watson was a high volume high intensity program. Watson didn't care much for his athetes if they weren't performing well he was not interested and for sure didnt know the name of a walk on unless he weighed 120 pounds and had ribs showing. Van Hoy emphasized speed work and tempo work. He was more involved with his athletes and acted like he was less immature than all of them. Van Hoy cussed you out during a workout then went to dinner with all the athletes to circle jerk and make jokes with everyone. Van Hoy has to mature sure but he already gets it more than Watson did.

Rojo,

I have to agree that Chris is a great HS coach. I think he would be an even better college coach. There are not too many high school coaches that would be willing to work with athletes not on their team. The work he did with Jake and Craig between their junior and senior years is amazing. He took two 9:40 juniors and trained them to run sub 9 and sub 4:07 (no name juniors to national elite of the elite). Craig was one of the only high school runners to go sub 9 and sub 1:50 (two of these athletes were Olympians). What coach does that? Answer: Chris-- I hope the guy that is training with him now will come back to NC and run for UNC. He loves Umstead State Park and UNC trains there every week.

My prediction in 10 years: Chris gets hired by U. of Michigan. He hires Rojo (because Letsrun gets bought out for millions) as his assistant and Michigan becomes the top dog in the Big Ten.

Hooked wrote:

As a former athlete of each, one of the few, I would have to say VanHoy. The two of them were different in many ways. Watson was a high volume high intensity program. Watson didn't care much for his athetes if they weren't performing well he was not interested and for sure didnt know the name of a walk on unless he weighed 120 pounds and had ribs showing. Van Hoy emphasized speed work and tempo work. He was more involved with his athletes and acted like he was less immature than all of them. Van Hoy cussed you out during a workout then went to dinner with all the athletes to circle jerk and make jokes with everyone. Van Hoy has to mature sure but he already gets it more than Watson did.

Same goes for the female athletes recruited by Watson. He loved the ribs showing on his girls e.g Kendra Schaaf. He recruits great athletes and doesn't know how to progress them.

Good to hear from you Blake