Newbury was a bit different. They had a flood of really good middle school kids (including the Sahlmans and Youngs) come at the same time. They didn't come because of the coach as the team wasn't that good yet until they all got there. 11 boys under 5:00, several into the 4:40's is an extraordinary amount of really good kids to have on a roster of a high school team. Of course good coaching helps and as so many have pointed out, it was a perfect storm of really talented kids, a solid driven coach and incredible parental support, created the greatest XC team in high school history.
This is the same story I heard about Loudoun Valley and Great Oak. It’s just sour grapes from other coaches. Many coaches get sub 5min kids and can’t do Jack Sh!t with them. The main reason for Newbury Park, Great Oak and Loudoun Valley‘s success is not getting lucky with talent but the coach’s exceptional ability to coach and mentor these athletes. Every school has talent over the years but very very few reach the greatness of these school did
Former Great Oak now coaches Herriman and last fall, Herriman won NXN without a transfer in their top 7.
I think FM boys won without a transfer in 2014 too
This is the same story I heard about Loudoun Valley and Great Oak. It’s just sour grapes from other coaches. Many coaches get sub 5min kids and can’t do Jack Sh!t with them. The main reason for Newbury Park, Great Oak and Loudoun Valley‘s success is not getting lucky with talent but the coach’s exceptional ability to coach and mentor these athletes. Every school has talent over the years but very very few reach the greatness of these school did
Every school has 11 kids show up at the first practice who have already run sub 5:00 in middle school? I highly doubt that.
I buy every school has talent, but there are exceptional situations, like NP. Find me another that has ever had that many sub 5:00 middle schoolers at one time. If it’s ever happened before, it is at least a very rare occurrence.
Name those 11 kids.I started with Brosnan’s first class coaching at Newbury Park. Nico Young ran 5:05 in eighth grade and Jace Aschbrenner ran 5:18 in eighth grade. We all know Nico was one of the most, if not the most successful HS distance runners ever. And Jace graduated with a 8:44 in the 3200m under his belt. So neither of them were junior high standouts, so this goes against your so called theory. At the end of the day Newbury Park did something no team in history did. Even if you get a few sub five kids Newbury Park was a stand alone program in progress. Arcadia’s coach was a brilliant coach. Love them or hate them High School teams get to the top form leadership.
OK, first of all, Jace Aschbrenner ran 10:57 3200 in 8th grade in his first year of running. That is pretty darn good for an 8th grader. Nico was about 3 feet tall and weighed about as much as nat in 8th grade and still ran 5:05. He wasn't that great as a 9th grader either, then grew a TON the next year when he really took off. Both of them were very good youth runners. I don't know, maybe I'm out of touch and this is more common than I think, but I've never heard of teams having a dozen kids on a team that were that accomplished before high school. I've heard of teams having a few, maybe 3 or 4, but Newbury seems to have waaaayyy more. Someone send another team that is close. It seems like somehow the Brosnan fan club won't acknowledge there was a lot of really good kids as it somehow doesn't support "the greatest coach" narrative, but the facts are the facts. It doesn't mean you still don't have to coach them. 4:44 is not 3:56, so it's still a lot of great development, but come on, the team was stacked.
Here's the quick list I could find (on top of the two you mentioned which makes it even more stacked):