Steve Magness "living legend" "has built a middle distance powerhouse" outside online article...

Nothing is innovative or ground breaking, but it makes a decently entertaining article for those uninformed of Magness. I agree, I'm a fan of his and he's a cool guy, but this article is ridiculous. I'm sure he finds it amusing

absolutely over the top.

You can't blame magness for it. Blame the writer.

As for performances, for a sprint school they do have quite the mid distance crew of mostly non-studs. Last I checked I think they had 4 guys sub 150 last year outdoors.

Not a power, but for a no tradition/scholarship school it's certainly impressive.

Look at this years results already, huge gains with great season and new recruits to come.

It's coming wrote:

Look at this years results already, huge gains with great season and new recruits to come.

Everyone will agree he seems to be doing decent, but a powerhouse?

Seems Steve gets a bit too much attention because he likes to write on his blog.

"Living legend" - Mark Wetmore, John McDonnell, Joe vigil, Jack Daniels, Pat Henry, Vin Lannana etc.

Publicity seems to be the end all be all credential you need in life, wether you actually get results or not! Similar to Kara Goucher & Lauren Fleshman, to the uniformed they would assume Kara & Fleshman are the two best female runners and Steve Magness is the best coach in the world.

I think many of the uniformed do agree!

Does he coach Dean Karnazes? Does he have any Tarahumaras in his group? Is he the Christian Grey of running? Perspiring minds want to know!

a bit ridiculous wrote:

Not a power, but for a no tradition/scholarship school it's certainly impressive.

Houston doesn't have a tradition? I think Carl Lewis, Mike Marsh and Leroy Burrell would beg to differ.

As for scholarships, if they are not fully funded they are pretty close to being...

There's no doubt that he is a living legend. How else can you categorize someone who simulates races by having his athletes determine their true colors between repeats and do recoveries by hanging out with their buds?

the writer tries to attract readers, and magness uses the publicity to gain recruits and improve his program

they could be writing about martians

cmon man wrote:

As for scholarships, if they are not fully funded they are pretty close to being...

HA!

Sprints and field events? Yeah.

Distance? No.

Houston couldn't even afford a half ride for an NCAA XC National qualifier and Junior Worlds 5k team member, Brian Barraza. He's even a Texas native.

Houston would be an NCAA XC National TEAM qualifier if they were even half funded.

cmon man wrote:

a bit ridiculous wrote:

Not a power, but for a no tradition/scholarship school it's certainly impressive.

Houston doesn't have a tradition? I think Carl Lewis, Mike Marsh and Leroy Burrell would beg to differ.

As for scholarships, if they are not fully funded they are pretty close to being...

Are you that dense? We are talking about distance. There sprint tradition is insane, where do you think the funding goes?

The last significant distance runner they had was in like 1970s on the men's side.

And having talked to Magness himself, he's had national qualifiers on less than 30%. Which is insane for a school in middle of houston with Zero tradition.

This just in: Barazza 8:04 in 3k at Arkansas. Tesfai 4:03 in mile. (also 1:48/8:08)

OP-

I, like you, also like magness. He was in hs, and apparently still is, the pinnacle of a runner nerd. The first paragraph is a lot of smoke, but it is outside magazine. I'm sure magness was embarrassed to read it.

Regarding the content of the article, really really interesting subject. Psychology is huge. I especially like the idea of hanging out after hard workouts. Our team won NCAAs 2x in college, and we hung out after every tough workout. Put it ahead of going out on dates, chilling at home, whatever. It was huge for forming a cohesive and tight team, trickled into workouts, and running the subsequent workouts positively impacted the social dynamic, positive feedback cycle. Those guys are still my closest friends to this day, and I'm sure it played into our team's success.

oldskoolTXrunner wrote:

... Put it ahead of going out on dates, ....

like any of you had dates.

Troothbringer wrote:

oldskoolTXrunner wrote:

... Put it ahead of going out on dates, ....

like any of you had dates.

I've never understood this meme; it must be a special case of a more general millennial thing. In the 70s/early 80s, all the runners I knew, other than the fundies, were laying plenty of pipe.

general info wrote:

Troothbringer wrote:

like any of you had dates.

I've never understood this meme; it must be a special case of a more general millennial thing. In the 70s/early 80s, all the runners I knew, other than the fundies, were laying plenty of pipe.

This is totally true. We got to take advantage of the sexual revolution / post summer of love heritage, and the advent of the birth control pill.

I can't think of a single one of my Duck teammates who wasn't getting action.

We had raging private track parties, and at the time the men's and women's teams were very segregated so very few of us were poaching track girls, we were dating the general school coed population...and often focused on the thinner, hotter, California Girls.

It was a wild time.

Later with the advent of new con Reagan era, and Herpes being publicized on Time magazines "Scarlet H" issue, and later aids...people slowed down and got more cautious.

During that period when the worst you knew you could get could be cured with a shot -- it was open season, women were coming after guys aggressively as they had just gotten to college and gotten Freedom.

The dorm dining halls were one big nightly pick up fest.

Good times.

GREAT POST DUCK

There are a few long distance runners that actually have game

general info

I've never understood this meme; it must be a special case of a more general millennial thing. In the 70s/early 80s, all the runners I knew, other than the fundies, were laying plenty of pipe.

Everybody was laying pipe then...

If you are on the team at UH I'm sure you're not that great......you know a little too much about Brian....creepy stalker perhaps?