Coaching Issue: My team is bad this year....

How small is your world coach people? Sniveling, provincial, lacking perspective. Nobody cares, not even most of your runner kids. Jesus, get over yourselves.

Entice them with: "You'll get full D1 scholarships if you work hard."

You have High Schools with 10+ guys under 10:00 in the 2-mile. You have kids that you coach that can run that fast but you aren't doing a good enough job developing them (which is more than "go run 8 miles, run these splits, do this workout"). But maybe you are as untalented as a coach as some of your slower runners, and you lack the necessary skills required to create the right type of environment and energy to cultivate a more competitive atmosphere. The formula for getting slow people fast is there, it's the medium (you) that isn't getting it to them well enough.

Not everyone can win.

Look for individual improvement in your runners that's a coaches job not just getting reflected glory off athletes who happen to be genetically superior.

I Know That Feeling! wrote:

Here's what you can do:

1.) avoid invitationals

2.) focus on the long term development of the athlete

3.) make it fun for those on the team (maybe they can recruit & bring friends to the team next season).

4.) up your recruitment game for next year

I don’t agree with 1, I think you need to go to invitationals and run everyone at their grade level. They’ll have a better idea of what faster runners are doing and may inspire them to dig deeper.

Like Really Bro wrote:

You have High Schools with 10+ guys under 10:00 in the 2-mile. You have kids that you coach that can run that fast but you aren't doing a good enough job developing them (which is more than "go run 8 miles, run these splits, do this workout"). But maybe you are as untalented as a coach as some of your slower runners, and you lack the necessary skills required to create the right type of environment and energy to cultivate a more competitive atmosphere. The formula for getting slow people fast is there, it's the medium (you) that isn't getting it to them well enough.

Perfect example of the cluelessness I was alluding to in my previous post. We had a team with 9 or 10 guys under 10minutes one year, along with the potential to have 2 4x8s at 8 flat if we spread the teams equally. About 8 guys out of that group graduated, one sophomore moved, and one guy had some injuries and regressed. The next year we were obviously worse, but decent. A couple years later we were probably below average. Things started trending back up, but that one year looks like the high water mark for at least another couple years.

Again, explain why the best teams with good coaches still have slow runners if good coaching is all it takes to make people faster. You can't draft whoever you want on your team. Of course you can improve team culture, but at a certain point you just have what you have.

In my first year of High School my coach convinced me that to be a good runner I needed to finish in the top 100 at the North of England Schools champs. I finished 96th and was really proud of the achievement. I won that race for the next 6 years in a row. But without the motivation of that first year, I would not have still been a runner.

Give each runner their own goal and see how they go.

Adviser wrote:

If you’re a college coach it’s your own fault for not recruiting better. If you’re a high school coach it’s your own fault for not developing your underclassmen better.

Either way it’s your fault.

I coach Jr. High.