BAA hires Iona coach Ricardo Santos to replace Terrence Mahon as coach of BAA High Performance Team

Serious question, which one of these schools have the max amount for scholarships for their men's program-

Villanova, Providence, Ole Miss, Colorado, Oregon

I don't know what the point of the questions is, but all except Providence.

It’s all restive.

It’s not that difficult to be very good in XC if you have 6+ full rides.

Why? Because only about 30 schools in the country actually care about XC. Another 20 or so survive off being a big name school and getting kids for cheap off name.

Most schools field track teams. That’s where their resources go. So even with a full 12.6 for men in track, XC kids may get 1.

It doesn’t mean Santos isn’t a good coach. But XC is about a handful of schools that care. The others, distance coaches are scraping by with peanuts.

Educated22 wrote:

It’s all restive.

It’s not that difficult to be very good in XC if you have 6+ full rides.

Why? Because only about 30 schools in the country actually care about XC. Another 20 or so survive off being a big name school and getting kids for cheap off name.

Most schools field track teams. That’s where their resources go. So even with a full 12.6 for men in track, XC kids may get 1.

It doesn’t mean Santos isn’t a good coach. But XC is about a handful of schools that care. The others, distance coaches are scraping by with peanuts.

While I agree with you that it is much easier to be competitive in XC with 6+ men's scholarships I would not say most schools ignore distance. USC is the only program I know of that completely ignores it. A lot of fully funded Power 5 programs try to field competitive teams with between 0- 2 scholarships. But I think a lot of Group of 5 and a few mid major type programs that are fully funded (and a good amount are these days) put about 1/3 of the allotment (roughly 4) into distance/mid distance. There are more scholarships going to distance runners than people think.

I would be willing to bet any non Power 5 (and a lot of the Power 5s too) schools competing at Nationalsconsistently has more than 50% of their total allotment tied up in distance scholarships. Obviously I can not say for certain. If you have 6 full rides in distance runners you can make a national level team most anywhere if you have the right international connection (easier said than done); you just can't afford to miss on more than one guy.

Brickrunnin... absent a change in the last 18 months you are flat out wrong on scholarships. Agree that while other power 5 schools can fly 40 folks out to Stanford Iona can’t do that. But let’s not peddle mistruths re number of scholarships.

Jonathan Gault wrote:

Santos will leave Iona after NCAA indoors and begin at the BAA on March 15.

Will be interesting to see what happens with that group moving forward. They need to do some rebuilding on the men's side as their best runner by far (Chris O'Hare) left, as did miler Daniel Winn.

Ricardo Santos doesn't sound like an American name to me. Where is he from?

Santos

Mackey

Hudson

Rae

Gary

DOBERT

All interviewed.

Santos not 1st choice.

You forgot Pete Watson

Keep reals as it is wrote:

Santos

Mackey

Hudson

Rae

Gary

DOBERT

All interviewed.

Santos not 1st choice.

Pretty interesting list of names. Just out of curiosity though.

-who was offered

-who wasn’t offered

-how much money is the job paying

-what order were these candidates in

Bonus, who is in the running for this new unconfirmed coaching spot for Reebok Boston? Same set of questions.

WTF the Garys are interviewing for pro coaching jobs?

BAA wants to launch an Olympian. Dobert is the only candidate in that list who has actually worked with an Olympic athlete, and he is an asst coach.

If Reebok enters the game with the funding rumored to be involved BAA will be unable to keep up in the recruiting game.

if you know how many scholarships iona has, post the exact number.

don't be ambiguous and imply that it's extremely low

or if you don't know exactly, then stop pretending to know

Does Iona promote their associate head coach? He's been there a while. The bottom of his bio is weird as hell though:

"Pienta’s coaching influences include his former high school coaches, Bill Barrass and Tyler Eichas, his former collegiate coach at the University of Albany, Kevin Williams, as well as the hit sitcom, "Coach," starring the great Craig T. Nelson and Ernie "Coach" Pantusso from “Cheers”.

Pienta is an avid fan of both music and comedy, melding the two as a founding member of the Barnyard Calamity Players comedy and acting troupe. He is the son of legendary bluesman and wood-worker, the late Walter J. Pienta, who was the lead singer and harmonica player in the seminal contemporary blues group, Whittlin' Walt & His Bladed Bluesmen."

i don't know what to think of all that....

Head scratcher wrote:

BAA wants to launch an Olympian.

Curious about that. Haven't heard anything about the goals the BAA has set for the High Performance Team let alone how they plan to achieve them.

My impression (and this is informed) was that the BAA was not willing to support athletes enough to attract the talent or develop the success they say they want ... Olympians, US Champs finalists. The BAA ought to be rolling in money but not put where their mouth is on this issue IMO.

Any reason to believe this will change? Would love to see success out of that group but worry the new coach will not get enough support to achieve it.

Cash is not the difference. Does BAA spend as much as Hansons? Hansons have produced more than one Olympian. I remember in 2008 when Brian Sell made the Olympic team and everyone on this board called it a fluke that would never happen again. Then along comes Desiree Davila who was another no name that also becomes an Olympian. TWICE.

Hire Hansons to do the same thing in Boston.

who do they hire wrote:

Does Iona promote their associate head coach? He's been there a while. The bottom of his bio is weird as hell though:

"Pienta’s coaching influences include his former high school coaches, Bill Barrass and Tyler Eichas, his former collegiate coach at the University of Albany, Kevin Williams, as well as the hit sitcom, "Coach," starring the great Craig T. Nelson and Ernie "Coach" Pantusso from “Cheers”.

Pienta is an avid fan of both music and comedy, melding the two as a founding member of the Barnyard Calamity Players comedy and acting troupe. He is the son of legendary bluesman and wood-worker, the late Walter J. Pienta, who was the lead singer and harmonica player in the seminal contemporary blues group, Whittlin' Walt & His Bladed Bluesmen."

i don't know what to think of all that....

He has a sense of humor?

That shows you know very little about running and even less about the nuances of coaching.

soundoftrilence wrote:

Track, marathon, what difference does it make? This is running -- it's not building a piano. Just have the guys go out and run. Usually fast running combined with lots of running works. Being a running coach is the easiest job on earth.

UltraStan wrote:

I heard they had interviewed Pete, not sure if they actually offered it to him. Why would he leave a facility and team he and Zeka own and operate ? I call BS. Makes no sense. I heard but was offered to A few other candidates who turned it down. Hudson Benninger Warburg

Pete was interviewed, but more so to get perspective on recruiting, expanding the program, funding, etc. I think he also offers insight having run his program for awhile now.

i could easily see ZAP become a development feeder program for a larger Project that has the same type of resources and athletes that BTC, OP, etc have.

Think you are missing something .... wrote:

brickrunnin wrote:

A decent resume at best? You're joking right? Iona has far less resources than you think including scholarships, and they don't even have a track on their campus. Iona has been extremely consistent and successful for a small, not well funded, program.

Rick is an intense but good guy who will have no trouble finding success with the BAA.

Not commenting on overall theme of thread as removed from scene for few years but your point on resources misses the mark. Iona provides full amount of scholarships and they are subatantially all (more than 95%) given to middle and long distance runners. Other programs have to spread their money amongst sprints throws jumps and have a little left over for longer distance.

To try and paint the Iona story as small school with no resources comes good misses the mark.

And almost their entire roster is made up of foreign athletes who are older than class level and enter the program as accomplished athletes. There's not a tremendous amount of development. The entire top 5 is graduating and maybe Iona won't win conference XC this year? Don't worry they have some 22-year-old freshmen who've competed at Euro XC coming in.

they used to regularly send their distance runners to whatever local meets are going on to throw the shotput and jog 90 second 400s to get their meet count in.

Boston broseph wrote:

Yeah, they do nothing with running which is why they're creating a brand new running team based where their world headquarters are.

Confirmed that Kemoy Campbell is with them and not longer with NBB. They're also looking at Tori Gerlach and Justyn Knight, which is confirmed. Kemoy left NBB because Reebok gave him a better deal, plain and simple.

Still curious how they're going to convince us they create good running shoes. All I know about Reebok is that they push CrossFit and MMA like crazy. Do they even have running shoes?

Boston continues to be a hub for some of the best runners though, which is sweet.

Adidas owns Reebook. So Reebok-branded shoes made by Adidas.