I read enough to know I would NEVER send a kid there. Yes the coaches are a problem. There is always someone higher to go to. Going public is just putting a death to the program. It's going to take many years before someone good wants to run for them.
Looking at the success of other programs even in the same conference, why would someone run for a weaker school with crappy coaching?
Ivy League schools are really hard to get into in case you hadn't heard. If I'm just walk on potential and Dartmouth is THE ivy I get into, I run for Dartmouth. Then there is the fact that a couple of the Ivies are like top 20 in the nation - I might not be fast enough to even walk on at those even if I'm a 1600 sat.
All I took away from the article is if I was a distance runner who was considering an Ivy League school I would stay as far away from Dartmouth as possible
10 femoral stress fractures is insane. What on earth were they doing for training?
“All the injured athletes have a lawsuit against the school because Porscha Dobson was warned after McNulty sent his holiday break training plan to the team. Three workouts a week, plus a long run with tempo or progression, plus "recovery tempos" on easy days with 200s at mile pace. Every day is a workout.”
Sent this to my friend earlier, found it on letsrun
These Dartmouth athletes and their parents are compete weenies and need to grow up and move on. How embarrassing for the athletes to have your parent involved.
Typical Ivy League behavior. I swear to effing God, these kids will be so psychologically screwed as adults given how much they let their parents direct, and comment on, their lives.
Also, has The Dartmouth ever heard of editing for concision?
There are plenty of shiddy inexperienced high school distance running coaches in New Hampshire. She didn't have to go all the way to Transylvania to find a chump to move up to a D1 NCAA job.
It is insane to hire an unsuccessful D3 coach over Ben True on grounds of the latter's "lack of coaching experience." True at that point, in addition to his extraordinary professional achievements and his status as one of Dartmouth's best ever distance runners, a two-time recipient of Dartmouth's male athlete of the year award, and a member of its NCAA championship skiing team in 2007, had just written the workouts for Dartmouth's best heps xc finish in 18 years.
What?
You think 4th was dartmouth's best NCAA xc finish in 18 years? We can rip Dartmouth but if you are going to do so - be factual.
These Dartmouth athletes and their parents are compete weenies and need to grow up and move on. How embarrassing for the athletes to have your parent involved.
To be fair it’s just one parent and I don’t even think his kid is on the team so I don’t really get it.
also in response to making Dartmouth a sprints heavy school, good luck with that! You can’t workout outside until April and even then it’s still miserable. Small school in rural New Hampshire with no scholarships—will that really attract sprints compared to the training environment and history for distance?
To be fair, no Ivy offers good weather for sprint event training.
What I said about 4th at Heptagonals was taken from the article. Maybe I botched that too, but Dartmouth was actually 2nd, 3rd, and 4th on numerous occasions since winning with 30 pts in 2005, one of a couple times Ben True took the Heptagonals xc individual title.
At any rate, having the opportunity to hire Ben True as xc coach was golden. It's telling that they passed on him for someone with a poor record who proceeded to injure almost all of his athletes.
I hope everyone can recognize the issues at hand, while still easing up on the vitriol towards McNulty. Even if his training was poor, that doesn't mean he as a person is deserving of all this hate.
What I misread was the line about Dartmouth finishing fourth at heps xc for its best finish not in 18 years but since 2018. Since the ex D1 coach mentioned NCAAs, I checked out Dartmouth's results since 2011. During that time, they had two good individual finishes total on the men's and women's sides, Abby D'Agostino in 2nd (maybe she had another prior to that) and Will Geoghegan in 12th. The men qualified only in 2013 and 2016, finishing approximately 25th and 26th. So, the program's been down for quite a while but it is really down now.
What I misread was the line about Dartmouth finishing fourth at heps xc for its best finish not in 18 years but since 2018. Since the ex D1 coach mentioned NCAAs, I checked out Dartmouth's results since 2011. During that time, they had two good individual finishes total on the men's and women's sides, Abby D'Agostino in 2nd (maybe she had another prior to that) and Will Geoghegan in 12th. The men qualified only in 2013 and 2016, finishing approximately 25th and 26th. So, the program's been down for quite a while but it is really down now.
This isn't necessarily relevant to the men's team but if you're looking at results for both sexes, you missed the fact that Abbey won the NCAA individual title in 2013, which I'd say is pretty important.
What's with Dartmouth's love of coaches at D3 schools nobody has heard of?
It's pretty obvious that the head track coach is basically tanking the distance team by hiring guys who 1) will do everything she says and 2) are not very good. Tank the distance team, try to justify building up the sprints where she feels more at home, my take.
I hope everyone can recognize the issues at hand, while still easing up on the vitriol towards McNulty. Even if his training was poor, that doesn't mean he as a person is deserving of all this hate.
- former athlete under McNulty
Did you and 9 teammates have femoral or other stress fractures? Did the stress fractures occur after the coach was warned about his training plan? Did the stress fractures continue after members of the team had talks with the coach to change the training and he ignored them (see the article)? Did he wing it on the training day after day (see the article)? Did you then discover that he fabricated his resume (see the article) in order to put himself in a trusted position for which he was unqualified, causing 80% of the team to be injured and sidelined? Did he bully and mock your team when concerns were raised? I think the guy deserves every statement of fact and opinion on here about him. Perhaps he could issue an apology and statement of regret? That would earn him some respect. Otherwise, he will likely never coach again, and that is for the best. It sounds like people are determined to see that is what happens.
Femoral stress fractures happen with poor diet and sleep habits on top of heavy training.
Remember, Dartmouth was the model for animal house, nothing to do up there but drink. Guessing the guys on the team drank too much and didn't take care of themselves, not all in on doing the right things to be successful distance runners.
No, it will be there forever. McNulty will never McCoach again!
The frustration shouldn’t really be aimed at mcnulty. He was way under qualified and therefore underperformed. The real f*ck up and therefore direction of blame should be towards porscha for hiring him in the first place. ESPECIALLY because of her turning down better candidates to keep her power and getting rid of Ron shaiko
Join the fight. Take the lead. It’s just getting going.
Porscha Dobson Harnden should take this article to heart and resign now. She will likely be gone by June anyway, and it is only going to get uglier from here.