Best NCAA DI, DII, DIII coaches, taking into account resources/lack of resources available to them.

Don Nichter of Dickinson. He loses out recruiting in the Centennial Conference because of Haverford and Johns Hopkins, but over the last few years, he's made All-Americans out of kids who didn't even break 5 minutes in HS.

Peter Farwell of Williams College. He has won more Little Three Championship titles than any other coach in the country. I challenge anyone here to argue against that impressive feat.

>>>We talking track or XC? XC doesn't require a whole lot in resources to be successful. Neither does a distance-oriented track team, for that matter.

Really - try to sign a 10:40/sub 5:00 girl to your distance team with limited resources (scholarships / facilities = trails to run on / solid school academically)

Yep, I totally agree. He gets good, but not standout, high school runners and puts them on the podium. Nor is there program supremely well funded like NCC.

He loses out to Haverford because Tom Donnelly is a fantastic coach

Al Carius. Several other great DIII coaches even came from his program.

kippenberg wrote:

Al Carius. Several other great DIII coaches even came from his program.

The qualifier to this is that they have a lot of resources and a lot going for them. Top-tier DIII recruits, good facilities, great tradition, great funding, and a HUGE roster.

Carius started the program from nothing. The reason he has a better alum network than any other DIII school is because he is a better networker, coach, manager, etc. People might talk about other coaches at other schools, but they are essentially enthusiastic guys with a clipboard and a stopwatch. Carius has built a program by selling the idea to the school, alumni and recruits. He is just a better business person than any of these other coaches, and this is a business.

And there is nothing exceptionally advantageous about NCC otherwise. 3k students is on the small side. Its location is unremarkable.

And NCC is not just distance running. The school record in the PV is >18', TJ >56'. These are serious national class marks.

Carius/NCC is the shit. No other DIII program (and by extension, no other DIII coach) comes close.

wruuwu wrote:

if you're talking d3, remove all state universities and all elite (top 50) academic schools immediately. their applicant pools dwarf the the rest of the country.

before anyone starts, yes this does matter.

go region by region and look for the schools that are sending teams to NCAAs that don't fall in either of the above categories. then you'll have your answers.

A large applicant pool doesn't mean you can you can just pick and choose the best runners that apply to become part of your team. A 9:20 guy with an 1800 SAT isn't going to get in to Williams and Haverford, but he'll be a shoe-in at NCC.

If we are talking XC/distance running... In DI, specifically, how about the big-time track schools that don't give much scholarship money to distance/XC? Thinking of SEC schools like LSU, Florida, Georgia, A&M or PAC-12 schools like USC, Arizona State, Arizona, etc... Others? Who is doing the most with the least?

My first assumption is that we are talking only of XC/distance schools. I wouldn't know where to begin with successful sprint schools, especially less resourced ones.

We seem to be gravitating only to smaller, less resourced programs. I can understand why, but I think it is better to look for coaches who would succeed in any resource environment. Here are the ones who come to mind:

John McDonnell, Arkansas

Mark Wetmore, Colorado

Vin Lanana, Oregon/Stanford/Dartmouth

Joe Vigil, Adams State

Al Carius, NCC

Tom Donnelly, Haverford (I'm an ex Haverford guy, but I think he objectively deserves to be on the short list)

If we can go a bit further back, I would say Jumbo Elliot from Villanova would have to be on the list.

real deal holyfield wrote:

onebelow wrote:

It's Al Carius. You're wrong if you think otherwise.

I would agree. NCC is straight up royalty in D3, and they don't have any of these:

UW-LAX, etc: in-state population, huge

WashU, Williams, Haverford, NYU, etc - academics

Lincoln - academics (lack thereof)

Nothing against Coach Carius and NCC because I love what he and Grammie have done, but in terms of resources they have plenty and the best in Illinois and it's mainly because of the success he helped build. However, name a larger staff in collegiate track and field? Naperville is part of the 2nd largest metropolitan area in the country, possibly the best in terms of producing HS cross country and track athletes, and outstanding facilities to boot with a reasonable tuition rate, reasonable academic standards and large amount of academic programs for a small liberal arts college. Comparatively speaking, NCC is ideally situated and happened to have success at the right time in the right area to build a giant that is going to be hard to beat by any other DIII program in the state because the Alumni base is mostly local and affluent.

What Roger Haynes has done at Monmouth College competing against the resources Coach Carius has built at NCC and Paul Olsen has built at Augustana is more remarkable. Also what Chris Schumacher and Greg Huffaker have done at IWU in the same period as Haynes has been remarkable. 10-15 years ago you could have said these two staffs and 20-30 years ago you could have said that about Carius and Olsen. Now is a different story, Chapman at Aurora should be given some consideration and that's just my take from the Midwest DIII's.

At DI level, I would have to say Mike Turk at Illinois and the turnaround he did there. Yes, they have some resources, but Mike had the interim tag on him for 2 seasons and it's tough getting around those resources and creating a top 10 track program when your football program can't recruit athletes good enough to be conference level athletes at the DIII level.

Obviously, I am little bias towards Illinois based programs.

100% accurate.

If you talk about Art you have to also talk about Chris Siemers at Colorado School of Mines. Chris has taken a program that had not trophied at DII nationals till 2009 and they won DII XC this fall. Which is crazy coming from an engineering school where to get in you need an ACT of 30 to get in.

Siemers Fan wrote:

If you talk about Art you have to also talk about Chris Siemers at Colorado School of Mines. Chris has taken a program that had not trophied at DII nationals till 2009 and they won DII XC this fall. Which is crazy coming from an engineering school where to get in you need an ACT of 30 to get in.

I've heard good things about that program. But another D2 coach who has churned out consistently good teams is Gary Towne at Chico State.

bloob wrote:

Siemers Fan wrote:

If you talk about Art you have to also talk about Chris Siemers at Colorado School of Mines. Chris has taken a program that had not trophied at DII nationals till 2009 and they won DII XC this fall. Which is crazy coming from an engineering school where to get in you need an ACT of 30 to get in.

I've heard good things about that program. But another D2 coach who has churned out consistently good teams is Gary Towne at Chico State.

Chico is consistently over rated and/or under performs at nationals.

Some lesser known Cali programs/coaches:

D1-Tony Sandoval-Cal(very underrated middle distance coach who has developed national class runners over the years at academically demanding school)

D1-Peter Dolan- UCSB(great 800 coach)

D2-Gary Towne- Chico(most dominant Cali d2 over the years)

D2-Wes Ashford- Cal Poly Pomona(turned from no name program to nationally ranked d2, guys running sub 14:30)

JC-Rich Anderson- American River(perennial state champs, sends lots of guys to d1)

JC-Chris Zepeda- Hartnell (Christian Soratos JC coach. Soratos went from 4:20 guy to sub 4 miler in 2 years)

Underradar wrote:

Some lesser known Cali programs/coaches:

D1-Tony Sandoval-Cal(very underrated middle distance coach who has developed national class runners over the years at academically demanding school)

D1-Peter Dolan- UCSB(great 800 coach)

D2-Gary Towne- Chico(most dominant Cali d2 over the years)

D2-Wes Ashford- Cal Poly Pomona(turned from no name program to nationally ranked d2, guys running sub 14:30)

JC-Rich Anderson- American River(perennial state champs, sends lots of guys to d1)

JC-Chris Zepeda- Hartnell (Christian Soratos JC coach. Soratos went from 4:20 guy to sub 4 miler in 2 years)

Not so sure about Sandoval. The JC coaches are getting it done without any scholarships. Truley impressive.

Jerry Baltes

I raced against GVSU when they were bad. Like consistently 4th or 5th in the GLIAC bad. He came in and really turned them around and built something special there.