Coming from a former track and field athlete at Cornell who competed 4 years as a decathlete under Nathan Taylor and has been following the story over at GT and here on Letsrun..
I think what people don't realize is that technical coaching skills, recruiting, a competent staff, and the backing of an endowed program can only get you so far at the college level. I don't know anything about Henner and I dont think any of us know the extent of the issues there but GT needs somebody at the front from here on out who can spearhead some changes.
Coach Taylor would be a great fit at a program like that.
The difference with him is that he really cares about his athletes and their lives. My career prior to Cornell I had been running for and doing other sports under coaches who looked at their job as purely a system and process to implement with the goal of winning and looked at the athletes simply as a means to that end. I thought that is how a coach-athlete relationship was supposed to work.
When I got to Cornell I got the feeling for the first time that my head coach was actually in my corner and out to make my academic experience, social experience, and even my post graduation life a lot better. This type of attitude rubbed off from him to other coaches and down to the members of the team. We cared about each other and doing things in life, not just on the track, the right way.
I think the only real way to change a culture is get somebody to run the show who can do more than just make authoritative decisions and win meets. Its obvious by Taylor's resume that he can coach and win but he can also lead a team through a tough patch and some serious changes and they'll come out stronger on the other side.
Georgetown coach Pat Henner resigns (but gets glowing recommendation from AD) - 7 xc meets are cancelled
Report Thread
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While I do think the sanctions on the team and Henner's resignation may have been a bit harsh, there is no doubt that Henner is 100% free of any wrong doing and the track program is better off without him going forward. The program severely lacks cohesiveness from my perspective, with the distance getting more attention than the sprinters. Lets be honest here, anyone who knows Henner knows he is the furthest thing from personable guy. He's socially awkward and has a difficult time connecting with his athletes especially the younger members of the team. Mostly referring to the experience of the mens side of the program here, sure some of the older veteran people have been able to adjust to his personality without any trouble but it is certainly not a welcoming personality to have as a head coach as an incoming freshman and I can understand why athletes would be turned off by him. Henner plays favorites. You only fall into his good graces if you fit his cookie cutter style of running. Sprinters are totally on the back burner in his program. What Georgetown needs, like any good track program, is a coach who is a likable guy and his able to connect with all of his athletes on a personal level so that everyone's potential can be fulfilled. Sure Henner has coached some athletes to great performances, but to me that is only a small fraction of his responsibility as a coach.
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Well, besides it sounding like you are not actually outside looking in, I can imagine Henner gave more attention to distance than sprinters. Georgetown is a distance school - given its history, poor facilities (not the coaches' fault) and the need to decide how to maximize 12.6 scholarships. As an expensive, not terribly well-endowed (see Stanford that has excellent financial aid) private school it can't spread scholarship money too thin. So Georgetown has always had mid-D/D head coaches and left sprints/field to assistants, That said, not sure whether they have had consistent coaching there for sprints or whether a different coach (even a D coach) could build a better rapport across the entire team (sprints to distance, non-scholarship to scholarship) that would help build a whole team atmosphere if indeed that was an issue.
Outside Looking In wrote:
While I do think the sanctions on the team and Henner's resignation may have been a bit harsh, there is no doubt that Henner is 100% free of any wrong doing and the track program is better off without him going forward. The program severely lacks cohesiveness from my perspective, with the distance getting more attention than the sprinters. Lets be honest here, anyone who knows Henner knows he is the furthest thing from personable guy. He's socially awkward and has a difficult time connecting with his athletes especially the younger members of the team. Mostly referring to the experience of the mens side of the program here, sure some of the older veteran people have been able to adjust to his personality without any trouble but it is certainly not a welcoming personality to have as a head coach as an incoming freshman and I can understand why athletes would be turned off by him. Henner plays favorites. You only fall into his good graces if you fit his cookie cutter style of running. Sprinters are totally on the back burner in his program. What Georgetown needs, like any good track program, is a coach who is a likable guy and his able to connect with all of his athletes on a personal level so that everyone's potential can be fulfilled. Sure Henner has coached some athletes to great performances, but to me that is only a small fraction of his responsibility as a coach. -
Big Red on the Potomac? wrote:
Why would Taylor come out of retirement (he did retire willingly, right)?
If Gtown did do that it would be transitional for sure and might hurt recruiting as kids would not be sure who their coach would be in a couple of years. They need a coach who will likely be there 15+ years to build a team that excels year in and year out with a good team culture.
i assume they will go outside and Smith is not being considered simply given the need to show change.
Taylor didn't willingly retire. No more than Henner willingly resigned.
Taylor - while a jumps coach - was a great manager at Cornell. They were good at every event. They won a lot. They were respected.
IF Georgetown was smart, they'd keep Mike Smith as the distance coach and hire Nathan Taylor to oversee the program and clean it up. That way you'd have continuity, and Smith could be groomed to take over the program in a couple years if he proved to be capable.
As for the yahoo still clamoring for Pete Sherry....look, I like Pete. He's a good guy. But he's a good high school coach, not an elite level college coach. Has Herndon ever won a state title in XC or track? Have they ever had a kid qualify for Footlocker under Sherry? You'd be asking him to take over a program that had 4 or 5 guys run under 4:00 last year. -
If any top level sprinter really considered Georgetown they either just loved the school and qualified for massive financial aid or are just dumb. The only sprinter they need/want is the 400 leg on the DMR and they can find that with an 800 stud who could not make the 1200, 800 or 1600 leg. This is Georgetown not Florida or Texas. I love the commitment they put into their distance focus and how they care about more than just the NCAA meet like other schools. Look how many Hoyas compete at USA Juniors and the USA meet. They care about development and making a top notch runner and not points in Eugune at the NCAA finals. Henner is clearly a track guy and is the sacrificial lamb because in this day in age it's too hard to come down on the actual perpetrator. Pulling the scholarship of the "ring leader" would have been too hard to deal with.
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Pete is a good dude but is not the fix GT should be looking for...
After this debacle they will have to but off the image that they are a full(inclusive) program so they need a 'Director' type person.
This is custom made female of color situation....
This hire will be about appeasing the issues brought up by this reality TV-like crap show.
Where Henner lands will be equally as interesting? Maybe he leaves coaching? -
"Hazing is any action taken or any situation created intentionally that causes embarrassment, harassment or ridicule and risks emotional and/or physical harm to members of a group or team, whether new or not, regardless of the person’s willingness to participate."
Georgetown is a Jesuit university. Masturbation is banned by the Church.
Posting a video of teenagers masturbating in public, then posting it online could potentially breach these codes.
The students in the video may not have given their consent to the videos being posted online (dedicated porn sites will pay for hazing videos).
Inappropriate hazing and racism are a big focus of attention at Georgetown. The University has created a number of channels for reporting hazing or racism and urges victims to call 911 immediately.
Comments and actions can be misheard or construed as racist. Even if you overheard a racist comment it would be difficult to prove it.
There were two reports of racism. -
Somebody needs to post the video.
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Agreed then sprinters shouldn't be recruited at all if they will have zero attention given to them by the coaching staff not to mention a coaching switch every year
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Sprinter12 wrote:
Agreed then sprinters shouldn't be recruited at all if they will have zero attention given to them by the coaching staff not to mention a coaching switch every year
It's also on YOU as the athlete to do at least base research and see that sprint coaches are leaving to greener pastures with regularity. GU has never been a sprint heavy school, and it never will be. It doesn't have the resources or financial wherewithal to be truly "fully funded". Look at its tradition: mid-D and distance. -
friar joe wrote:
Sprinter12 wrote:
Agreed then sprinters shouldn't be recruited at all if they will have zero attention given to them by the coaching staff not to mention a coaching switch every year
It's also on YOU as the athlete to do at least base research and see that sprint coaches are leaving to greener pastures with regularity. GU has never been a sprint heavy school, and it never will be. It doesn't have the resources or financial wherewithal to be truly "fully funded". Look at its tradition: mid-D and distance.
Nobody is demanding a sprint-dominated school. It's not unrealistic to expect the school to do a much better job with their sprint program.
If they are literally incapable of taking care of the basic functions of the sprint program, they should eliminate it. -
They absolutely should eliminate the sprint program at Georgetown and JUST be mid distance and distance. They will not but only because they want diversity.
Just like LSU and many sprint programs should eliminate distance (even though they have money to support it and be better than they are - they choose not to in favor of sprint points) they continue with XC because it helps the track GPA. -
Yukon jack wrote:
They absolutely should eliminate the sprint program at Georgetown and JUST be mid distance and distance. They will not but only because they want diversity.
Just like LSU and many sprint programs should eliminate distance (even though they have money to support it and be better than they are - they choose not to in favor of sprint points) they continue with XC because it helps the track GPA.
It's like seeing the ugliness of this message board all wrapped up in one neat little comment.
The real tragedy, obviously, is that at schools like Georgetown, white people are being held back out of some misguided effort for senseless diversity. This apparently leads to a reduction in team GPA and the white distance guys not being as good as they should be. Bravo.
The plus side is if you eliminated the distance program at Georgetown, they wouldn't be suspended from some competition and banned from the locker room. I guess the proper mode of racially purifying a team to your standards is a rocky road. -
What are you even talking about..no one is talking about white or black. It's about distance and sprints.
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Sounds like you have the race problem and you may want to check yourself. Sprinters (white or black) TEND to have lower GPA than distance runners. Idiot!
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"They absolutely should eliminate the sprint program at Georgetown and JUST be mid distance and distance. They will not but only because they want diversity." - Race
Yukon jack - it sounds like you just made that up, and it's a pretty specific claim. Care to back it up in any way shape or form? -
Why would a school ever want to have a track program with only 4 events represented? Why not just eliminate track and field and do cross country only?
Taylor got sprinters, jumpers, and throwers to come to Cornell. Princeton, Stanford, and Cal also get great recruits of all types despite tough admissions and high tuition. What makes Georgetown so different? -
Well, for starters, Georgetown doesn't actually have a track.
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quote]asdlasjdl; wrote:
Well, for starters, Georgetown doesn't actually have a track.[/quote]
A key point. It is a disgrace but that is on the university not the track program. They built a defective track on roof of the open field house in the early 80s that had problems and couldn't be fixed.
Also to compare to Ivy League and Stanford is a bit of a stretch. They are the elite of the elite academically (said as Gtown alum) and Georgetown is simply elite- so they have an edge. Stanford has much better financial aid in general so probably uses that more effectively to stretch scholarship $. Most Ivies have better financial aid as well.
Georgetown had a better (more consistent year to year) sprints/field events group before scholarships dropped to 12.6 for men.
And who is coaching men in interim? -
http://exposegtowntrack.blogspot.com/
Only problem here is that Mike Smith is at the center of the racism allegations mess.
Oh, Sherry, C'mon my love wrote:
Big Red on the Potomac? wrote:
i assume they will go outside and Smith is not being considered simply given the need to show change.
IF Georgetown was smart, they'd keep Mike Smith as the distance coach and hire Nathan Taylor to oversee the program and clean it up.
