Steve Magness resigned/out at Univ of Houston?

Though I've never met Steve, I've read his books and blog and have listened to some of his podcasts. I like his work in all those settings and will defend him a little bit. The content of the writing is quite good and thought-provoking, though agree that the editing sometimes could use some work. To me, he comes across fairly well on the podcasts but Marcus is a long-winded, pontificating disaster who manages to use 500 words to say 50 words of content. If there was a way to listen with auto-skip on Marcus, I would. But though I'm a big consumer of podcasts, both running and non-running, I had to stop listening. Steve, ditch Marcus! :)

To correct what seems an unfair and implicitly problematic assertion, I'm 99% sure that he did NOT marry one of his former Houston athletes. As far as I know, she went to Texas A&M and he coached her post-collegiately for a while. (Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think so).

Coaching is hard and does not happen overnight. Not that I have any experience. Recruiting and developing runners has to be difficult.

Magness seems like a great coach, but more than half the job of being a college coach is knowing how to recruit. Houston is not an easy sell at all as others have said and I think Magness just wants to coach and not want to have to be a salesman.

JMar has nothing to do with this but I find it entertaining. Oddly enough I think a lot of his fundamental ideas for mid-D are good, but you have to sift through all the off-topic nonsense to find those nuggets of info.

It's funny how he says that the best coaches know how to explain complex topics in simple terms, yet he has no self-awareness that he's doing the opposite. And it's clear in his writing that he's simply regurgitating the writing styles of his favorite coaches of yore (mention Cerutty or Lydiard or Igloi one more time) instead of forming his own. A side effect of being well-read I guess if you don't try to develop your own voice.

You're right, my bad! She was his athlete, but only post-collegiately.

Zante wrote:

Magness seems like a great coach, but more than half the job of being a college coach is knowing how to recruit. Houston is not an easy sell at all as others have said and I think Magness just wants to coach and not want to have to be a salesman.

Sure, though where does that happen outside of NOP? Wetmore is the same way, he recruited under Quiller and then when he got to be head coach he designated the task to assistants. Hell, just try to imagine Rojo recruiting at Cornell. Even as a high school coach, you have to sell the team to the student body to get your best team possible.

His books are just him poorly paraphrasing other books. The Science of Running steals everything from Noakes.

Magness has done well with post-collegiate athletes. College success is more about scholarships and recruiting. If you have money and a draw to your school and you can coach a little, you'll do great. If you don't have money, even if you are a good coach, you aren't making much of a mark. That's just the way it is.

I'd imagine with his success in writing, he can just write and coach a handful of pros. That sounds like a pretty good life to me.

The college world is a grind of climbing the ladder until you get to a place where you have scholarship money and a draw. It can be very rewarding, but it can also be very tiresome.

Good luck to him.

He didn't have any men under 15 in the 5k this year. Not 1 athlete under 15. He didn't have any women under 17:10 in the 5k. He didn't even have any women under 2:20 in the 800. I'm sorry but that's inexcusable. There are dozens of D3 teams that are significantly better.

If he can't take a bunch of 9:50 boys in the 3200 and turn even just 1 into sub 15 in the 5k by senior year then he has no business coaching.

Spends too much time on Twitter and not enough time coaching.

sad fall wrote:

His books are just him poorly paraphrasing other books. The Science of Running steals everything from Noakes.

Nonsense.

First, there are NO running books out there that don't repackage material and research that's available elsewhere, albeit often in a less approachable format. It's not "stealing" when you cite other work. Nobody puts original physiology research in books that are sold at Barnes & Noble.

Second, most of the work that Magnus summarizes is NOT available in books. You'd have to go to journal articles to find it.

Third, he's entirely open about the fact that the first half of the book is a literature review of pretty much everything we know about endurance training. What's unusual about it is how comprehensive it is. There is no better reference out there at present. The last book of equivalent quality was probably Better Training for Distance Runners, but that's fairly dated now.

Fourth...Noakes? Really? Lore of Running is a terrible book that, despite its incredible length, largely ignores most of the significant literature on endurance running. It's mostly mediocre "history" (on the level of a high school paper), with a lot of stuff on ultrarunning and heat. And while some version of the Central Governor theory is clearly correct, Lore of Running gives an oversimplified view that does almost nothing to advance training knowledge. In any event, Noakes is clearly not a primary influence on Magnus, other than in the very general sense that Magnus understands that endurance performance is mediated by the brain (which everyone who isn't an idiot accepts). 95% of what's in Science of Running is not in Lore of Running. If there's anyone that Magnus is following, it's Canova.

I'll have to take your word on that, and in general terms I'd agree. I just wouldn't know the level of recruits he was landing with the scholarship crumbs he was allotted. I'm certain he should be better off working for himself, maybe even out-Tinman Tinman.

Reminds me of Kent State (MAC/mid-major). Good school, but more for commuters and almost like a 4-year community college (depending on the major). The KSU track program was good for awhile (Wendel McRaven, who is now at A&M, was the coach in the 2000s).

McNeil wrote:

Spends too much time on Twitter and not enough time coaching.

He does have some tweets that make you think. Even if I disagree with them, if they are well-thought-out I respect that.

He's responsible for some of the worst years in Sara Hall's career, when she was arguably in her prime biologically

Do have a link to that announcement? I don’t see it on his Facebook

Totally agree with you, "800 Dude". I've read Lore of Running (though it has been some years now), and I don't remember much of anything, if anything at all, on training for specific events, which to me is the more useful and compelling half of Steve's book. The first half is a review as you say and I agree that it is a useful and readable overview as opposed to the slog that is Noakes' book.

This just shows how poorly read you are. There are major issues with Magness' book.

1. Poor grammar, thousands of mistakes.

2. He offers nothing new or original. He didn't do any research of his own.

3. He actually has a poor scientific understanding. Attempting to read his description of other studies and scientific principles was confusing Magness doesn't actually understand the science.

4. Noakes is actually the most cited as a reference

5. EVERYTHING in Magness' book is in other books.

6. The grammar again, because it's THAT bad. If you don't know how to write, THEN DON'T WRITE.

jecht wrote:

McNeil wrote:

Spends too much time on Twitter and not enough time coaching.

https://twitter.com/stevemagness/status/1427322469988376579?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

He does have some tweets that make you think. Even if I disagree with them, if they are well-thought-out I respect that.

And that is one of Steve's issues... he's unaware of himself. Turn the neighborhood app off. Turn off Twitter. Turn it all off. Stop with the constant paranoia and fear. Once one minimizes these unnecessary evils, their life turns upward.

We know too much about Steve, because he won't shut the eff up about everything. And he's proven himself to be quite the fool.

1. What is a "neighborhood app"?

2. Why is Precious Roy making excuses for UH? Al Lawrence is rolling in his grave. Houston, let alone Texas, has enough population and talent to field a national contender every single year. They need the right program/recruiting/coach.