OSU Bucks

FACT#1 - Ohio State gets the best talent in Ohio every year. We can go back for at least 5 years and almost the top 2 distance kids from Ohio go to Ohio State every year.

FACT#2 - Quite of few of those top kids have not improved at Ohio State. Several have left the program.

FACT#3 - Mid American Conference schools do not get the best talent in Ohio

FACT#4 - When it comes to coaching, thats right real, day to day coaching, the MAC coaches do a much better job of elevating their athletes from where they came from in high school, than OSU does.

FACT#5 - Because of pure talent OSU will be better year in and year out than the MAC schools, but the MAC schools have individuals who can beat OSU runners every year (Kent had Mike Inge, Miami had Huling, Swisher, Sovacool) etc.

FACT#6 - OSU supporters will never accept that their crap doesn't stink.

Don't usually want to get in the middle of a pissing match but it should be noted that Kent always has gotten very good runners, as has Miami. In fact, both teams get so much talent that if their coaching is that much better at those schools, they should be able to beat OSU and the inferior coaching that goes on there. Great coaching and really good talent should be near the same as average coaching and great talent.

Akron and Kent have awesome indoor tracks that give them a huge advantage in recruiting. They usually get the next best runners after OSU - or at least should. The problem is the Croghan is a bit of an awkward duck and Lebaddie is a bit arrogant and rubs many the wrong way.

It is good to see there is some passion floating around the state though.

Back to the pissing match........

See Elon Simms--1:52 in OH outdoor state meet, just losing to See. Has he run another 800 since? Instead he's stinking up the joint in the 400 hurdles.

Simms also qualified for the state meet that year in the 110 hurdles, and ran at least 14.9 during the season. Maybe he and the coaches think that his speed over middle distances combined w/ his hurdling technique gives him the potential to be a very good 400 hurdler. Seems logical enough to me.

He's also run some pretty tough 600s indoors for the Bucks, but was injured this year, I do believe.

Leroy, 1:52 in HS is MUCH better than 14.9 in HS. And his 400H times have been weak for the Big 10. If you saw his 800 in the state meet, it was clear that he had much more potential in that event, faster than White and whoever else is running the 800 right now for OSU.

too bad malone can kick all their asses.

Just because you start as an assistant under someone, doesn't mean you can't eventually surpass them in terms of coaching. Schumacher did not start at UNC, he was a VA for 3 years at Wisconsin under Martin Smith. Does this mean that Smith will always be a better coach because Jerry uses a similar system? No, Jerry has evolved, and I also believe that Robert Gary has compared to his two previous coaches.

How can you argue with Connor, Myers, and Olinger? None of these guys qualified for Footlocker coming out of high school and Myers' best credit was a 2nd place finish at the Golden West Meet. Few coaches in the nation have taken modest home-grown talent to the level of these 3 guys, let alone other coaches in Ohio.

Gary also has done a great job at developing mediocre high school kids. Derrick Butler (top 10 at state cross) won the Big Ten Outdoor 10K in 2003, he was a walk on. When was the last time anyone from Kent or Akron won a 5K or 10K title in the MAC?

How many Big Ten titles has OSU won? Well it's a bit harder to win a Team title with national powerhouse Wisconsin in the picture. I am not trying to diminish the MAC and all of the hard working athletes that compete in the conference, but don't pretend for a second that it's anywhere close to being as competitive as the Big Ten.

I guess I just don't understand why this has to turn into a OSU vs. OH MAC schools argument. When you look at the facts, or results, Ohio State clearly stands above the rest.

I would tend to agree w/ you that the 1:52 is the better mark as opposed to the 14.9, I just think that makes it a little more reasonable to see why he's giving the 400 hurdles a shot, especially since they a more manageable height than the 110s.

This is pure speculation on my part, but, given Gary's total team approach to track that he seems to be taking, maybe he sees a hole in the 400 hurdles and is looking for a possible scorer? At 800, he already has, See, White, Hall, and Leslie.

Reality Check:

Myers was the state xc champ and had ran 4:09 - 4:10 at the state meet. He came from a little hick school. I recall seeing him in the 400 rankings with a 48 or 49 second open 400 time as well. Talk about freak talents.

Conner beat Vincent Fries to prevent him from winning state xc 4 times in a row. Conner was also a extremely talented guy from a little hick school. The biggest difference between him and Myers, with regard to high school track success, was that Myers coaches had somewhat of an idea of what they were doing and Conner's didn't.

Olinger is a good story but he obviously was another extremely talented runner from a hick town.

That is what every coach should be looking for - hungry, fairly quick, hick town kids.

With being said, OSU is generally better across the board but that is something that most have already admitted.

With regard to Butlers 10k championship, it was a great accomplishment for him but a very poor year for the 10k, even by MAC standards.

Seriously, I am surprised it took the Malone fanboys this long to get on the thread.

Newsflash - You have the 2nd best high school roster in the state. If you don't win All-Ohio in XC, a race that you back down for, and against a partial OSU "a" team, there is something going wrong. How about that track success. Virtually non-exsistent? - even with high school studs (4:12, 4:14, 4:16, 4:17, etc..).

There are some decent teams in Ohio but nothing to get crazy over. OSU has done a decent job. Kent has done okay at best until the DMR this indoor season. Akron has always been nothing to write home about. Malone gets a blue chip roster and beats up on the NAIA. Miami has good success from time to time.

Look for Dayton to be competitive with Kent, Malone and OSU next year.

NFW wrote:

How can you argue with Connor, Myers, and Olinger? None of these guys qualified for Footlocker coming out of high school and Myers' best credit was a 2nd place finish at the Golden West Meet. Few coaches in the nation have taken modest home-grown talent to the level of these 3 guys, let alone other coaches in Ohio.

Myers won the Golden West 800m and doubled to run the 1600m.

douglas burke wrote:

ohio state signed an excellent female recruit a couple of weeks ago. her name is nyjah amhari couser.

I was referring to the best distance runners. It doesn't look like this girl is a distance runner. Actually the Buckeyes do have a couple state champions. They are on the basketball team!!

As for the guys, each team is going to get 3 or 4 guys a year. There may be only a few seconds per mile difference in those guys. It is not surprising If a slower high school guy improves at a greater rate in college than another. That isn't always a reflection on the coach.

Gary is considerably younger than Crogan and Labadie.

Labadie has coached Crogan and Gary to sub-9 and that's it.

Crogan has coached not one person to sub-9 except Gary who already was when Crogan coached him.

Gary has coached 13 guys under 9 including Aaron Fischer (8:38), Olinger (8:19), Ian Connor (8:31), and Huling ran 8:20 under Gary last year.

What's the discussion? You can argue the reasons, but these are the facts.

The worst part about this thread is that these 3 hold each other in the highest regard, but if those stats are true, this argument is over (especially picking 9-flat because that isn't that special.

Gary just thinks higher level with the athletes he gets. Olinger ran 8:19 in college and earned a contract to continue professionally. Same with Connor and same with Myers. Myers finished 3rd at Olympic Trials after finishing 4th at NCAA's that year! Incidently, Myers went 3:53 mile under Gary; there is nothing in a 4:09 and 1:51 double that would predict that.

When Gary had See go to a meet to make sure he got into the Olympic Trials between Regionals and NCAA's last year, I thought it was very stupid until I thought about how its essential for the experience if 4 years later See is trying to be an Olmpian.

It must suck to be Rob where he is trying to build a complete track team and you have all these silly Ohio coaches who think they could do so much better and don't need to worry about facts at all.

Rob presented at the USATF High Performance summit meetings the last 5 years and again this year at the USTFCCCA on steeplechase. I agree with many who think he should only coach professionls, but I have found him quite humble, self-deprecating, and incredibly forthcoming with information, opinions, etc.

Do others really think that he couldn't take 12 scholarships in the distance area and qualify for Nationals every year and have a stud distance crew?

What the hell happened to Balyo last week? That's a long way to travel to run 14:34.

It looked like things were starting to kick in for him indoors.

Balyo ran 4:02 and 8:06 indoors (pretty good). He also has only run 3 steeplechase races and ran 9-flat at Big 10's last year. I predict 8:45 this Spring, but since its Ohio State, Ohio people will be saying any other MAC coach could get him to 8:30 easily.

leroybrown wrote:

I would tend to agree w/ you that the 1:52 is the better mark as opposed to the 14.9, I just think that makes it a little more reasonable to see why he's giving the 400 hurdles a shot, especially since they a more manageable height than the 110s.

This is pure speculation on my part, but, given Gary's total team approach to track that he seems to be taking, maybe he sees a hole in the 400 hurdles and is looking for a possible scorer? At 800, he already has, See, White, Hall, and Leslie.

Yes, you may be right about Gary's reasoning. My point was just that having seen a very RAW Simms run 1:52 in HS it seemed that he had the potential to run (much) faster, and potentially faster than any of those you list who are now running the 800 (and of course See doesn't run the 800 often, except to beat Michigan).

On the other hand, and being more optimistic, it looks like they did a great job getting Murdaugh, who appears to be a real diamond-in-the-rough.

Noting Ian Conner and Vincent Fries development (or lack thereof) in college (OSU versus Cincinnati) is perfect example of the double standard that OSU is held to versus the jealous Ohio people.

Speaking of beating Michigan, I saw on OSU's website that they won't be charging anything for admission to the UM-OSU dual meet next Saturday. That should make for a nice pit stop on the way to my parents' house for Easter.

Unfortunately, I never saw that race at the state meet you were referring to. I do seem to recall that being an incredible senior class for the state of Ohio - See, Simms, O'Brien, Sovacool, Fox...tough year to be a distance runner in high school.