Pac-10 XC results ['03 thread revived]

[Guest]

Re: Pac-10 XC results

What I'm getting at is an alternative view of athlete development. I can think of at least a dozen of my teammates at Cal who are still competing and still improving. If you buy the idea that runners who come up through the American system will peak in their late twenties or early thirties, then the job of the college coach is to be a guide through the middle stages of development. One important aspect of that is that they don't burn out the athlete physically or mentally. We might not have taken too many scalps at Cal, but we'd take a few now if someone set up a Pac 10 alumni race. You can throw in Cal Poly, too. My basic point is, don't confuse big time results with athlete development.
My HS PRs 4:17 9:15
Creasey- about 9:10
Moreno- not sure

[Guest]

Re: Pac-10 XC results

Where we disagree is that I see some middle ground between a program that gets everything it can out of the athlete in college and spits them out wasted at the end and the kind of results Cal produces. I'd suggest that several of those guys running 27 and 28-minute 8Ks at Pac-10s are talented enough to run better than that even within a careful long-term development program, and it's the coach's job to allow them to achieve that. The fact that they don't means they've been doing the wrong kind of work, the wrong volume of work, or the work they've done has not built up their confidence or inspired them.

Also, I have to think that if what you say were exactly on the mark, we'd expect to see more late 20s or early 30s Cal alums in the Olympic Trials (track, where the standards are a lot tougher than in the marathon).

It's great that Sandoval instilled a love of running in you and your teammates, but if most of those teammates never make the NCAA standard in their lives, whereas some of them had the talent to have done it had they been in a different collegiate program, who's to say they're better off than the kid who actually ran fast in college and then moved onto other things in life? Philosophical question; don't know the answer.

>What I'm getting at is an alternative view of
>athlete development. I can think of at least a
>dozen of my teammates at Cal who are still
>competing and still improving. If you buy the
>idea that runners who come up through the
>American system will peak in their late twenties
>or early thirties, then the job of the college
>coach is to be a guide through the middle stages
>of development. One important aspect of that is
>that they don't burn out the athlete physically
>or mentally. We might not have taken too many
>scalps at Cal, but we'd take a few now if someone
>set up a Pac 10 alumni race. You can throw in Cal
>Poly, too. My basic point is, don't confuse big
>time results with athlete development.
My HS
>PRs 4:17 9:15
Creasey- about 9:10
Moreno- not
>sure

[prelives]

Re: Pac-10 XC results

>the job of the college
>coach is to be a guide through the middle stages
>of development.

Being a college coach, albeit DIII, I thought that my job was to develop athletes to perform the best they can for my college. Four years is plenty of time to develop any talent that may be there. They may continue to improve post collegiately, but at least they will have improved beyond high school. I have the luxury of not worrying about being fired for having a team finish last and can truly take time to develop mediocre talent into successful runners - even if that takes place 4+ years post college.
Many Div. 1 Coaches do not have that luxury and have to get their runners to run fast...well fast.
Not to defend Coach Sandoval, but on the flip side one disadavantage of recruiting fantastic high school runners is that many of them trained at a very high level in high school to achieve those results and may be physically, mentally fried.

[dl]

Re: Pac-10 XC results

Success in college and post-collegiate competition are not mutually exclusive. If you want to develop kids slowly, fine. But there's no reason why guys who ran 4:15/9:05 in high school should be running 27:00 or 28:00 for 8K cross, even if it was cold and the course was tough.

I didn't mean to stir up a hornet's nest. I just wanted to point out that Cal defenders can no longer use the excuse that they don't get talented kids. This current crop is dang good. I hope they develop into a group that can break into the top 4-5 of a very tough conference, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Guest]

Re: Pac-10 XC results

I think we've run this thread into the realm of "what is the job of the college coach". Everyone has their own ideas on this one. I'm voting for long term development, with short term improvement. Don't come down too hard on the Cal freshmen. I ran 26:26 on the old Stanford course as a freshman. Getting used to running a tough 8k or 10k is rough in your first year. It took Asmerom three years to figure out college running. Improvement will come.
A good question to ask would be, where are all the guys who ran so well in college? The guys who relegated Cal to the cellar? With a few exceptions they've hung 'em up for good. They served their schools well by kicking butt in college, but were left with no love for the sport, no running soul. No success is worth losing the love of the sport. That's getting used, not developed.

[Guest]

Re: Pac-10 XC results

If Tony is such a great coach, how many of the marathoners you mention still train with him?

[Guest]

Re: Pac-10 XC results

Who cares if there are some Cal guys running 2:19 for the marathon? That wouldn't even put you atop the women's list. Just because American marathoners suck now and a few former Bears are dipping under a terribly weak qualifying standard does not mean that Tony's doing things intelligently and with a view toward his athlete's future.

[dl]

Re: Pac-10 XC results

I believe Bolota Asmerom trains, at least in part, under Tony, after a couple of years on The Farm Team.

[Guest]

Re: Pac-10 XC results-Cal

Having flubbed myself as a frosh (not at Cal) and then progressed significantly as a soph, I can attest to the difficulty for frosh in the Pac 10. But Guangal and Carballo are not frosh, and should being running MUCH faster than shown here.

And what about the women? They seemed to show a lot of promise at Stanford, but then steadily declined. I expected them to finish in the middle of the pack.

[Guest]

Re: Pac-10 XC results-Cal

I agree with Lilot that you can have success in college and post-collgiate. We had a very good XC team at Cal in 97 that came so close (5th man back 20 places from where he should have been) from getting fourth in the toughest region I've ever seen. We were no high school all star team that year but Tony had us prepared. I still draw on the days leading up to that race as a blueprint for how to get ready for battle. Those races may not have looked like success from your point of view, but to us they were milestones. The point being, we measured our own success in college. The poster who tried to discredit our performances in the marathon has obviously missed this point. Hopefully my measure of success someday match his/her idea of success.
I don't train with Tony now because I found a coach who is a better fit for what I'm trying to do. That doesn't mean that I would trade my years under Tony. He was the right coach for me at that time. There were many times that we disagreed, but looking back he was right most of the time. I would have had a lot more success at Cal if had just shut up and listened.

[Guest]

Re: Pac-10 XC results-Cal

i think i fall somewhere in the middle of the road on all of this. i do agree that the job of a college coach is to develop his/her athletes to perform their best at the collegiate level. but i also feel it is to continue to develop the athlete so they can run beyond college. do i think tony did this? i think he did more of the latter. i know i could have run faster in college. but that is my own doing. i didn't run enough miles (70-80).

i think a college coach needs to be very structured, at least until an athlete gains the experience where they can makes these decisions on their own. "do this many miles, do runs of this length, etc." tony wasn't necessarily like this. and we all did varying mileage.

did he help me develop? hell yes. do i wish i would have gone elsewhere? no. do i wish i had done some things differently, yes. but under tony, my leg speed and leg strength both increased. i went from 4:20/9:31 (hs) and 15:16/31:51 (what was i doing?) (jc) to 14:40 (no, not all that)/29:43. could i have done that elsewhere in two years time (he wanted me to take three)? possibly. but i feel he, and all my coaches, provided the basis for the runner i am now. and the fact that i'm still a runner now is enough for me.

p.s. '97 was dope. the west was stacked like pancakes.

[6 5.5hjsteve]

Re: Pac-10 XC results-Cal

Gotta be impressed when both men and women got under the "magic number" of 27; they beat the rest of the conference combined in both races !

[Guest]

Re: Pac-10 XC results-Cal

I can accept one bad year or two from a team I follow and want to do well. But this is ridiculous. It seems every single year that Cal gets last in men's and women's cross country. Even a broken clock gets in right every once in awhile. I don't understand the problem. I heard this was going to be a good year for a young men's Cal Bears team. And I also was told that the Cal women would finish in the top 5 at Pac-10's. But both the men and women were terrible at Pac-10's. Something needs to change soon. This is not acceptable. We have settled for less than mediocrity at Cal. Im sick and tired about the lame excuses from the coaching staff about lack of money. I saw the Cal Bears at the Stanford Invitational win the 4k race. From that point, it was all down hill. The team obviously peaked way too early. And it is clear as a bell that they lack toughness. I hate finishing last every year. I wouldnt be able to live with myself if I was the head coach.

[dl]

Re: Pac-10 XC results-Cal

Thanks Gilmore and Moreno for providing some insight into how the Cal program works. I didn't mean to be overly critical in my earlier posts.

I think I simply want what all Cal fans want: a good team that is competitive in the Pac-10. I could see how athletes on the team might be thinking of their long-term running careers, but I think fans want the team to do well while they're in college. I doubt many older Cal fans follow the alums on the roads.

Cal is one of the best (if not the very best) public schools in the country. It has the biggest population of in-state kids to draw from. Fantastic weather. The running from campus isn't that great, but you're near some of the best trails in the country. There's simply no reason for them not to be competitive within the conference and on the national level.

[Guest]

Re: Pac-10 XC results-Cal women

Here's more on what happened to the Cal women:

Sophomore Bridget Duffy had the Cal women's best finish in five years,
placing 13th in a time of 22:15.70 on the 6,000m course. The Oakland,
Calif., product improved on her freshman year conference showing of 35th,
which was also the Bears' top result in 2002. Junior Abby Parker was the
Bears' next best runner in 41st (23:47.00), followed by freshman Eva
Markiewicz in 50th (24:13.30).

The Cal women were without the services of two of their top runners -
Christy Borak and Maja Ruznic - due to injuries.