Manbearpig15 wrote:
There's something about the area. Maybe the early settlers were a tougher, harder working type of people.
My mom was from Manlius. During my running days I was known as the guy who would outwork everyone. Now I have a young son and daughter that run, and especially my son has shown he can out work other runners.
Wonder how they would do if I somehow moved to central NY.
The pro group wasn't a flop because of Bill but because of a lack of talent. Let me state a few things.
1) Bill Aris is a genius.
It's late at night on a Friday. Do I really need to type why? I guess I have time.
Here goes. When I was at Cornell. I was interested in recruiting Owen Kimple. He was one of the original Stotans. I went to the NY HS state meet when Owen was a junior and had run like 915. I met Bill and said, "Oh is Owen your best guy?" He laughed. He said, "No we had a different #1 every meet every year but Owen was as low as #6. Our #1 guy isn't running individually."
I was like, 'Why not.?' Bill Aris was like (paraphrasing), "He's a sophomore and he was running the 2mile indoors each week and not improving and not having fun and looked miserable so I went up to him and said something along the lines of, "Look your ultimately a distance guy. But you're only a sophomore. So do you want to run your event (deuce) or just do what we need you to do - the 4 x 800, be young and have some fun?" He (Tommy Gruenewald who ran at BYU/Stanford) said the latter.
That was my first significant in-person interatction with Bill. When I heard that story, I instantly realized that it wasn't all about him. He didn't force these kids to do anything. He got them to do it.
Kimple was like a 413-5 kid who then popped a 407 1600 in his last meet before college where another kid basically rabbitted it out. I thought to mysefl, "Oh God. He's not a 407 talent. It would have been better if he'd never run that." While many of the FM guys aren't huge on milesage, Owen had run 1000 miles over a 10 week period before the summer of his senior year.
So when he got to Cornell, I thought to myself, " We can't have him do even more for like 4 years and he can't be that focused for 4 years so let's let him relax a year or two and then if he's going to get better, he's going to have to be even more focused." He was talented, don't get me wrong, and had a BEAUTIFUL stride. I think he probably could have been close to a sub-4 guy if he killed himself but he went abroad etc as I forgot to tell him I had this unofficial plan for him. Ha ha. But he was on our Ivy League record holding DMR and PR'd by a little (406 mile ??) and is a great guy whom I'm consider a good friend and whom I go out with every time I'm in NYC.
if you asked Owen right now, I'm sure he'd say that if he stuck with Bill he'd be in the Olympics. But that's the way I felt about John Kellogg when I was running. He's like most people on letsrun think if you train harder you get better. You do - until you hit your genetic limit - which comes later in life. Most people don't realize this as they never run after college or coach which leads to #2.
2) I knew the pro group wouldn't be successful (unless they got a huge budget).
When they started it, someone asked me about it, and I said something along the lines of, "It won't be good unless they get the best talent. In high school, you can out-train 95% of your competition. At the pro level- hell even college level - you can't do that."
I was 100% right on that. I bet it even surprised Bill. But you learn. It's like when I got to Cornell I thought I could make Cornell into a top 5 program (not possible).
Their pro group reminds me of Salzar's before he got the likes of Rupp/Farah etc. You can't win Olympic medals with pedestrian talent or lifestyle. When Salazar was working with people of roughly my brother's talent level (Chad Johnson, donnely, etc) they weren't world beaters.
3) After college, the best Stotans have been the men. Alex Hatz ran 339 at Wisco. He's their version of Don Sage for Joe Newton. What's interesting is how their women have done almost NOTHING in college.
Up until a few years ago, I think this stat was true. An FM girl had never been a scorer on an NCAA XC team. Some had been 7th girl but never top 5. Now that changed this year as Neal for UW is really good. But she transferred into the team senior year for xc and I think had already quit by the time outdoor rolled around.
4) Why would we expect them to be world beaters in HS or college? It's normal for the top HS programs to not make impacts at the college level and for top college programs to not make impacts at the pro level. How many of NAU's top 5 this year will be stars at the pro level? (1?) Same thing applies to Syracuse in 2015 (1?)? Look at football. Mater Dei is the #1 HS football team in the land. They have 2 recruits this year that are ranked in the top 50 in California. Are the football messageboards blowing up because a HS team can't dominate at the college level?
5) He does an unreal job and the fact that those women come through as favorites every year is unreal. He provides a great experience for them. Maybe too great as I think some find college to be unmotivating, etc.
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