In the past 25 years every footlocker winner who later made an olympic team has had the same college coach

I'm a big Wetmore fan, but this is a tad misleading.

Chris Solinsky is on that list, and he made a worlds team and ran 26:59/12:55 before his freak injury in 2011. He was just unlucky.

Drew Hunter has also made a worlds team and because he's 21 he hasn't had a fair shot at an olympic team yet.

Same goes for Grant Fisher who was only 20 during the last olympic trials.

Cheserek has not attempted to qualify for the Olympics because of his citizenship status.

calpa wrote:

In Running with the Buffaloes Wetmore says something along the lines of "If you want to be All American in college, don't go to footlocker" I think even he knows that it can be hard for some of those kids to keep it going and some of them view footlocker as the highlight of their career and lose motivation but that's just my conjecture.

Reuben Reina

Bob Kennedy?

Jean-pierre wrote:

Reuben Reina

Was like 35 years ago.

I don’t think it’s misleading at all.

Solinsky’s hamstring was bugging him for months before that “freak” accident. Maybe it was bad luck, but he was training very hard on a chronic injury leading into it.

Regarding Hunter, making a world’s team, while impressive, is not making an Olympic team. Next year the stakes will be higher and the race will be tougher. Hunter is an interesting case though because he skipped college entirely. If he does make the team next year or in 2024, will that encourage more high school runners to go straight to the pros?

Ches, Fisher, Hasay might all still do it. But until they do, they’re not Olympians. Even if they do make it, there was still a 20+ year stretch of footlocker winners where only Buffaloes made the team.

If I were Wetmore, I’d use that as my recruiting pitch to the footlocker winners every year.

Safety information wrote:

Hey D3, you can’t spell.

you must be new here

Bonkers wrote:

I'm a big Wetmore fan, but this is a tad misleading.

Chris Solinsky is on that list, and he made a worlds team and ran 26:59/12:55 before his freak injury in 2011. He was just unlucky.

Drew Hunter has also made a worlds team and because he's 21 he hasn't had a fair shot at an olympic team yet.

Same goes for Grant Fisher who was only 20 during the last olympic trials.

Cheserek has not attempted to qualify for the Olympics because of his citizenship status.

It is a little misleading. I'd say it's about 75% Hassay joins those ranks. But it does show how good he is at developing talent. The list of flameouts under Wetmore is way shorter than most top D1 coaches.

He gets good recruits but not the best classes. He is without a doubt one of the best American coaches.

Safety information wrote:

Hey D3, you can’t spell.

You must be new here.

wrong conclusion wrote:

You are looking at the names of individuals who made the U.S. Olympic team. You have come to the conclusion that one needs a specific XC coach to make U.S. Olympic team. I look at the same data and conclude: Future Olympians should not race Footlocker XC. The list of U.S. Olympians who did not race Footlocker XC is a long list of men & women.

Just as relevant is the number of US Olympians who never set foot in Montana. Or have eaten foie grass. Or have Icelandic heritage, made whoopy on a roller coaster, been without a thyroid issue, etc. Data is fun.

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

Bonkers wrote:

I'm a big Wetmore fan, but this is a tad misleading.

Chris Solinsky is on that list, and he made a worlds team and ran 26:59/12:55 before his freak injury in 2011. He was just unlucky.

Drew Hunter has also made a worlds team and because he's 21 he hasn't had a fair shot at an olympic team yet.

Same goes for Grant Fisher who was only 20 during the last olympic trials.

Cheserek has not attempted to qualify for the Olympics because of his citizenship status.

It is a little misleading. I'd say it's about 75% Hassay joins those ranks. But it does show how good he is at developing talent. The list of flameouts under Wetmore is way shorter than most top D1 coaches.

He gets good recruits but not the best classes. He is without a doubt one of the best American coaches.

It's an interesting theory though that Wetmore is the best among college coaches at continuing to develop kids who trained really hard in high school. I'd be really interested to see what his success rate would look like if he brought in the type of recruiting classes that Stanford and Oregon do every year. Has he ever missed on a big-time recruit?

wrong conclusion wrote:

You are looking at the names of individuals who made the U.S. Olympic team. You have come to the conclusion that one needs a specific XC coach to make U.S. Olympic team. I look at the same data and conclude: Future Olympians should not race Footlocker XC. The list of U.S. Olympians who did not race Footlocker XC is a long list of men & women.

I would agree with that. They should not run NXN or Footlocker.

By the same token look and see how many of your best 7th grade basketball players make

a college basketball roster. I've been told it would be a very low percentage!

d3 wrote:

Mark Wetmore. Discus.

I didn't know Wetmore coached field events too.

bradyt wrote:

d3 wrote:

Mark Wetmore. Discus.

I didn't know Wetmore coached field events too.

Found the new guy!

Zkzkxnxndjd wrote:

bradyt wrote:

I didn't know Wetmore coached field events too.

Found the new guy!

Huh?

New guy wrote:

Zkzkxnxndjd wrote:

Found the new guy!

Huh?

Discus.

Bumping this thread in advance of the trials. Some pointed to Hassay and Drew Hunter as likely to break the trend. NOPE. Maybe Fischer?

A) Molly Seidel already did. It’s interesting (though not unrelated) to note that she broke the “footlocker curse” at NCAA XC too.

B) Grant Fisher from Stanford does not have a C in his last name. Both Grant Fischer from CSU and Reed Fischer from Drake do have Cs in their last names.