Adam Tribble (Cal Baptist coach) to UGA

No D1 coach wants another scrub that can barely break 15, that is not how college recruiting works. Just because you beat the worse guy on the team doesn't mean he wants another man at the bottom of the barrel, nor does it give the right to call a well respected coach a jackass. UGA is a tough environment for distance and I look forward to seeing what Tribble and Dawgs can do!

While that other poster may have been out of line with his comment, if you’re trying to develop a true roster (esp for cross), I’d argue its better to have more 14:00-15:00 guys vs. 1:4x-1:5x 800m guys since they can fair the 8K/10K distances better than those on the shorter end. In years past, UGA typically recruited more short ended runners who took up cross country spots and didn’t perform superb during those seasons. At least with these past two distance coaches, it looks like they’ve brought in some respectable 1600-3200m talent from GA and abroad. Hopefully Tribble can develop that.
As far as Cunniff goes, I’ve heard mixed things (both positive and negative) from former athletes and friends who ran under him and I hope he’s doing well with his post coaching career.

I also ran against Tribble in HS (and MS!). I forgot he was at Cal Baptist, but they've done alright. No idea if it really is a dumpster fire there he is leaving, but they've had some good XC teams in the past few years, both men and women.

However, I did also hear they went all in on the XC, and UGA definitely will *not* do that.

As a UGA alum—who didn't run there—they are definitely sprint and throw focused. Glad to see them hire a new coach, too. The last guy really was not good. Can't speak to the others, or why they left, but my daughter's got the running bug and is quite good so I've begun looking around at the schools she might be able to run for in college in 4 years.

The problem with UGA is their standards were pretty high, but their results have been awful. Which means bad coaching, TBH.

My daughter should be getting academic aid, and we'd have a way to get her the HOPE Scholarship for in-state students potentially if she was set on UGA, but I'd written it off because they'd broadly written off their distance program as far as I could see. (Still love my Dawgs in the sprints!!! One Olympian this year!)

If Tribble makes it 4 years, I guess we'll be re-evaluating! Heck, maybe they'll even have a summer cross country camp?

Seriously, UGA could be solid with a good, quality coach that improves athletes, and recruiting fast kids on distance who can qualify for the HOPE Scholarship (almost full-ride for instate students). No sports scholarships needed.

But yeah, gotta build the culture and the program and not run the kids into the ground. Which is all a tall order, and why you rarely see good, non-toxic college XC teams. (Especially for the women! They get mistreated the worst.)

Good luck to Tribble... Caryl is on a carousel with cross country coaches. It's always an uphill battle for any xc coach at Georgia, bc there's bare minimum scholarship to recruit with. After a couple failed hirings, this time she had some sense to go with an alumni to lead the troops. In this case, they should've just kept Cunniff all along. He's an alumni and last coach to have any success at that program. Yeah, Henner didn't screw up Sumner's 1 year there, but beyond that the team was atrocious. Cunniff coached multiple national qualifiers in the mens 800 .. who's to say he couldn't have done the same with that type of talent? He had national qualifiers in mile, 15, steeple, 5k and 10k, including points at NCAA Indoors to help the Lady Dawgs win their first ever NCAA Track title.

The last time UGA was ever relevant in xc was under Cunniff. Yes he benefited from the culture and guys Pigg brought in (Pigg deserves credit in those years), but that man did a lot with what he had - and continued it for the years he was there. Dawgs had the highest finish in program history on the men's side in XC (19th), a South Region title, both mens and women's programs qualifying to NCAAs multiple times....

Those teams actually trained for 10k and 5k... Now every new coach and group of kids comes in trying to get cute and gimmicky with bench press, lower mileage, instagram photoshoots on the silly throne chair, and then think they're all 1500m runners bc of super spikes. There are no shortcuts. The team needs to run more mileage.. get out to Botan, Birchmore, Whitehall. Hard to have a chip on your shoulder when you're a bottom of the barrel xc team, but you're getting the nicest gear and facilities in the country (besides Oregon).

Obviously UGA has historically been a field, throws, and sometimes sprint powerhouse. Distance is always going to be low on the totem, and it's hard to compete in the conference when every few years, programs such as Ole Miss, Tennessee decide to throw tons of scholarship into distance. But UGA used to be competitive with a team from all in state kids. Their one foreigner was Brandon Lord, all the way from 10 minutes over the border into Chattanooga. The team has fallen far and hopefully Tribble can help.

As for the salty poster on here, like someone else said, no D1 coach cares to add a kid that might be a smidge better than the slowest runner on the team. It won't change anything. To be fair, the rosters during those years certainly had a lot of fat at the bottom that needed shedding. Let's see what Tribble can do and how long he lasts under Caryl.

1. It’s really hard to survive year in and year out off of international kids no matter how much money you have. The recruiting and management of them is a GRIND.

2. This signals a move of survival. In 5 years it might only be the power 4 conferences left.

3. probably going to do what the majority of SEC schools do. Try on the women’s side. Bring in a few international for the men.

4. look At the long time survivors in the SEC. Wendel has the blueprint. Provides good numbers and GPA for the track program. Has a good women’s team. Every now and then a banger on the men’s side. Doesn’t ask for anything and keeps a low profile. Don’t expect good meets when you are run at home every weekend against the DI badlands that is the South Central region

Say it to my face. 900 University Ave. I won’t be applying. 🥹🥹🥹

This is absolutely the best response. Cash me ou-side. How bout dat?

Grow up. It might help your team

They have narrowed it down to their top three already.

Two power conference schools and a Big West distance coach that is really close by. They are probably gonna go with the power conference guys, but we will see.

FTY- They do not have it narrowed down at all. Also remember this is a very religious school