UW Green Bay

Runnerboy1010 wrote:

Why is UW Green Bay so bad? Why do they keep their coach around if he doesn’t achieve anything? They are almost the worst team in the state. I don’t get it.

Why you ask?

UW Green Bay, out of all the public universities in the state of WI is the furthest away from civilization. The public university in Superior is at least across the water from Duluth. The other public universities are either a moderate drive from Madison, Milwaukee, Saint Paul, MN or Chicago, IL.

furthest away from ... wrote:

Runnerboy1010 wrote:

Why is UW Green Bay so bad? Why do they keep their coach around if he doesn’t achieve anything? They are almost the worst team in the state. I don’t get it.

Why you ask?

UW Green Bay, out of all the public universities in the state of WI is the furthest away from civilization. The public university in Superior is at least across the water from Duluth. The other public universities are either a moderate drive from Madison, Milwaukee, Saint Paul, MN or Chicago, IL.

That's a really, really bad assessment. Especially some pretty good runners come from the Green Bay area schools, and it's a hour or so from Oshkosh and Fox Valley.

I don't have much to add otherwise, except they're one of the smallest public schools, with no niche programs to doffereneciate themselves, and don't put any resources into the programs besides basketball.

Wut???? wrote:

furthest away from ... wrote:

Why you ask?

UW Green Bay, out of all the public universities in the state of WI is the furthest away from civilization. The public university in Superior is at least across the water from Duluth. The other public universities are either a moderate drive from Madison, Milwaukee, Saint Paul, MN or Chicago, IL.

That's a really, really bad assessment. Especially some pretty good runners come from the Green Bay area schools, and it's a hour or so from Oshkosh and Fox Valley.

I don't have much to add otherwise, except they're one of the smallest public schools, with no niche programs to doffereneciate themselves, and don't put any resources into the programs besides basketball.

Not a bad assessment. An assessment that you did not want to read. You are making my point by stating good runners are there at Green Bay area high schools. Future college students want to attend a university to one day get a good to great job or start a company in a thriving city. You are stating basically good runners from Green Bay h.s. are leaving the area. You are also stating good runners are not attracted to Green Bay. I gave you your answer, but not the one you want to read. What I know about Green Bay citizens are drunken men at MN Vikings games urinating on themselves while sitting a few seats away from me. Once normal people experience Packer fans, they are turned off by your city. Most people want to do something for a living other than work for the Packers. What else is there in Green Bay? [I know all Packer fans are not Green Pay citizens, but Packer fans give Green Bay a bad reputation.]

First of all, they are not the worst team in the state. Ok, yes they are very bad compared to D1 schools, but there are a number of non-d1's in just Wisconsin that they could beat, and several hundred teams amongst all divisions throughout the country who they could beat. There are hundreds of teams between d2, d3 ,juco and naia that don't have 5 guys under 30:00 (or anyone under 30 in some teams cases).

Also, keep in mind that they do not sponsor track, which makes recruiting especially difficult. Green Bay is also not a great draw location wise. I don't know for sure about funding, but I would imagine there's not much money put into that program. It's kinda hard (or impossible) to take an 18:45 high school kid and get him to run 25:00 so you can be competitive.

Your answer is easy to see in the head coaches title and bio. Directly from his bio on their website: "Assistant AD of Compliance and Student Welfare, Academics, Compliance, Student Services, Men's and Women's Cross Country Head Coach." The head coach is doing 4 other jobs for the school with Cross Country being last on the list. His most notable contribution to the school is an increase in Athlete GPA across all sports in his role of Assistant AD of Academics. The school uses the Cross Country program as a GPA boost and not an athletic boost. Boasting the best team GPA in all of the NCAA in the 2015-16 season. I doubt that they are ever going to make the job only be about Cross Country, because the program does not bring in money and they have zero athletic expectations. The team only competes in Cross Country. The never compete at the Horizon League Indoor or Outdoor Conference meets. As long as the coach is willing to hold multiple titles and absorb those costs they wont ever feel the need to let him go. UWGB only cares about basketball and kinda Volleyball, AKA the only sports on campus capable of bringing in revenue.

Long story short no-one in the UWGB Athletic Department cares if the Cross Country team every brings home a trophy from the Horizon League. As a coach all you need to do is bring in good grades and you do your job. When it comes to recruiting it will always be hard, not because of location, but due to zero history of success and only having a Cross season. No runner who wants to be successful wants to only run Cross Country at a school that doesn't also allow them to compete indoors or outdoors.

As for them being the worst program in the state. It is definitely true of all the UW Schools with Cross programs. They aren't competitive in the Horizon League and even the top teams in the Horizon League would struggle to win a title in the WIAC (outside a few random athletes). Tuition is dirt cheap like the rest of the UW system, but zero history, zero expectation of getting better, and only one season is never going to attract or produce high caliber athletes.