What's going on with the UNC women?

CWRP wrote:

Was this the school with girls not training together and another being trained by her Dad and not the coach?

No, that's NC State

What's going on with UNC cross in general? I feel like both sides should be much better than they are. I don't understand why a great school with great athletics isn't able to attract talent. How's the coaching there?

Regardless of what you think of Pete Watson, he proved in a very short time the kind of talent that can be recruited to UNC if the coach is willing to hustle. Clearly, that has not continued after his departure.

Joel Przybilla wrote:

used to like nikes wrote:

they heard that they'd actually have to attend class this year

Good one! But outside of Football most of the kids are really academically strong. Valadectorians, National Merit Scholars, National Honors Society, carrying a 3.8+ at Carolina, etc etc.

add men's basketball to the list of academic flunkies as well. UNC is on not par with Duke, Emory, Vandy, Ga Tech, or Rice...Good school but 2nd tier, sub-elite academically.

I hate these kind of threads. People come on with little or no info and want to bash a program. I'm a NC HS Coach and, full disclosure, have an athlete in the program but attended a rival school.

From what I've been told, one girl transferred because of change in academic program and the other to be closer to family. The third was their roommate and leaning toward leaving because they were, but ended up staying. They didn't even request a release until this summer but they were still fully released by UNC.

From my athlete, the team atmosphere is great and they've said nothing but good about the program and coaches. I liked Watson, too, but my understanding is he had much more money to play with in the distance events and really didn't have much time for NC HS coaches and athletes.

Lets not be crazy. Pete Watson made recruiting NC a priority and scooped up pretty much every good kid in state while he was there. Who cares if he kissed the butts of high school coaches or not, he absolutely had time for NC. You just disqualified yourself with that statement. Maybe you should take a look back and see how he did with in state recruiting.

being coached by a guy named analstains can't be too much fun

Hi Pete, welcome to the thread. You must have done great things at cross nats with those recruits the next two years. Oh, wait...

JoJoCo wrote:

Joel Przybilla wrote:

Good one! But outside of Football most of the kids are really academically strong. Valadectorians, National Merit Scholars, National Honors Society, carrying a 3.8+ at Carolina, etc etc.

add men's basketball to the list of academic flunkies as well. UNC is on not par with Duke, Emory, Vandy, Ga Tech, or Rice...Good school but 2nd tier, sub-elite academically.

No doubt it isn't as good as the private schools you mentioned there, but probably on par with GT. Its a tier 1 university only because the first tier is very large.

As far as Men's basketball, while still admitting some kids that are subpar academically, things are better than when Matt Doherty was the coach. There aren't any current players in fake courses, but yes if you want to be competitive you have to take some academic charity cases.

I don't get this whole uproar over the current UNC football scandal. My friend told me she gave consent in Swahili, which the whole football team is now fluent in.

Girls who are recruited at this level are very hard to deal with. Most major programs have problems resulting in transfers. Some Runners don't get that

no matter how good you were in HS it isn't going to be that way if you're in a major conference (for the vast majority).

I can tell you that one top ten U. which had a recent top-5 recruiting year for CC saw that class go up in smoke within two seasons.

Transfers are only going to get worse and major programs that do nothing but poach should not be invited to premier Invitational meets. As well as carefully watched by the NCAA..

Haha I heard that too lol

The assistant coach is too busy fumbling around the logistics of a crappy mile race in August and doesn't have time to get VanAlstyne coffee. So then VanAlstyne is confused as to why Watson got coffee everyday at UNC from somehow who now gets paid more than VanAlstyne to do the same job. I wouldn't be able to coach either if I had all that on my mind.

Can we get over this whole "poaching" thing? I'm sure there are a couple of places that do shady stuff regarding transfers, but LRC'ers think every time a kid transfers that they were "poached". The fact is that athletes network with athletes from other schools and it is completely legal for athletes to talk to friends and find out that a coach or school would be a better situation for them than the one they are currently in. Simple.

Wait...the top three women on the UNC team asked for releases. Two are gone and the third was set to run at another school but backed out at the last minute. I believe the three were all ACC and all Regional last year in XC. I don't know but transferring cannot be an easy process and must be very stressful. Is this a coincidence?

Just noticed UNC in the results from ND.

1. The men are pitiful

2. Where was Alcorta? The girls only had 5 finishers

FANXC wrote:

Wait...the top three women on the UNC team asked for releases. Two are gone and the third was set to run at another school but backed out at the last minute. I believe the three were all ACC and all Regional last year in XC. I don't know but transferring cannot be an easy process and must be very stressful. Is this a coincidence?

I was one of three scholarship runners in my freshman class at a D1 school. We all came in on the same day and lived in the same dorm suite our first year. One of the guys redshirted due to an injury and me and the other guy trained like animals. We did everything together. So the redshirt guy decides that he is going to transfer to another program. The program was better for distance running, but the school was not as good academically. He convinces the other guy to transfer as well, and I am on the fence. I really liked these guys and they were my best friends for nearly a year. I also wanted to run fast and the other program would have been a really nice way to prioritize running. That said, I would have had to sit a season and I would have lost most of my scholarship.

I talked to my parents and they ultimately let me make my own decision, which was to stay put. I look back on that decision and thank God that I stayed. The redshirt guy never ran again and the other guy was an All-American. Sometimes your closest training partners and friends can influence you to do things that you might not otherwise do. The grass is always greener...

Then why not as equally "simple" for a coach to get rid of a student-athlete if he/she isn't as good, not trying, and/or a coach can get someone better?Olympic sport scholarshipped athletes should be much more accountable to their obligation to the University. It is nonsense that a school that invests in a kids development and develops it, then gets ditched for his/her best years later in collegiate career.

okay... wrote:

Can we get over this whole "poaching" thing? I'm sure there are a couple of places that do shady stuff regarding transfers, but LRC'ers think every time a kid transfers that they were "poached". The fact is that athletes network with athletes from other schools and it is completely legal for athletes to talk to friends and find out that a coach or school would be a better situation for them than the one they are currently in. Simple.

I bet you're a credible source