Andrea Grove-Mcdonough leaving ISU for UNC

[Messi]

Women’s XC coach at Iowa State. Very successful and has landed some amazing recruits the last few seasons

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8936386

 

[BoxsterCy]

Boo! Guess we will find out if the success here is individual coach driven or if it is sustainable with a new coach. Smith is as old as I am and I don't see them trying to have him coach the women to (hope not). I hope they don't throw the women's program under the bus with soccer and softball.

 

[KennyPratt42]

Can't blame her for leaving to run a men's and women's program at a major university. Hopefully she doesn't pull a Cael and try to gut the women's distance program here.

 

[BoxsterCy]

Can't blame her for leaving to run a men's and women's program at a major university. Hopefully she doesn't pull a Cael and try to gut the women's distance program here.

Hopefully not but guessing it's going to hurt the short term recruiting. Runners are immediately eligible but it is almost cross country season and I don't see our gals jumping from a 1st place Big 12 squad to a last place SEC one.

 

[JP4CY]

Boo! Guess we will find out if the success here is individual coach driven or if it is sustainable with a new coach. Smith is as old as I am and I don't see them trying to have him coach the women to (hope not). I hope they don't throw the women's program under the bus with soccer and softball.

Our AD loves the T&F and CC sports. I cant imagine him not doing some due diligence on a good replacement.

 

[BoxsterCy]

Our AD loves the T&F and CC sports. I cant imagine him not doing some due diligence on a good replacement.

He loves men's track and cross country, not so sure about women's cross country or, for that matter, any of the women's non-rev sports. He seems perfectly content with having the women's non-revs as just placeholders for scholarship balance without any accompanying drive for excellence, IMHO.

 

[ribsnwhiskey]

He loves men's track and cross country, not so sure about women's cross country or, for that matter, any of the women's non-rev sports. He seems perfectly content with having the women's non-revs as just placeholders for scholarship balance with any accompanying drive for excellence, IMHO.

Besides your opinion, what’s your reasoning?

 

[JRE1975]

He loves men's track and cross country, not so sure about women's cross country or, for that matter, any of the women's non-rev sports. He seems perfectly content with having the women's non-revs as just placeholders for scholarship balance with any accompanying drive for excellence, IMHO.

I usually agree with many of your posts, but not this one!

Since JP came on campus he has tried to make every team we field as competitive as he can. The money spent on non-revenue sports has increased many fold in the last 10 years. The facilities for volleyball, track, softball, soccer, and golf have all been significantly improved.

For anyone that knows Jamie, you know he wants to win at everything and has spent more money on recruiting for Olympic sports and coaches salaries to try and make ISU competitive. The budget has gone from $26 million when he got here to over $80 million in 10 years and proportionately the non-revenue sports have gained a lot more than football and basketball.

 

[BoxsterCy]

Besides your opinion, what’s your reasoning?

First, generally think our AD has done a good job considering we are not a high dollar program. I cannot complain at all about our revenue sports. As far as reasoning it's mostly just my observation and opinion, it's not like I have spent time interviewing coaches and players!

However I would like us to be at least competitive in any sport we field. There should be a goal of excellence even if it's tennis with no one watching. We are any good in swimming, tennis, soccer or softball. He didn't even try to retain our gymnastics head coach of the year who went on to win championships for the Sooners who did give a crap about gymnastics. At least in track and field we have our niche which is distance running, especially on the women's' side. I don't want to lose that, it's (generally) the only thing we can actually win the Big 12 in.

 

[Land Shark]

Boo! Guess we will find out if the success here is individual coach driven or if it is sustainable with a new coach. Smith is as old as I am and I don't see them trying to have him coach the women to (hope not). I hope they don't throw the women's program under the bus with soccer and softball.

Tough break for ISU and happy for AGM. Still, ISU is the premiere women's XC school in the Midwest and pays quite well for the role that AGM held. We will get a great candidate when we can fill the position. Filling the position is the tough part as camp start in two weeks or so. Will Sudbury go interim this season? A lot of possible options for ISU given the timing.
As good as AGM was, the program revival is largely due to Corey's efforts to build a program around Lisa Koll and he really took it off. To AGM's credit, we have maintained our status as a top national program for distance runners. Perhaps, we can get better from this in the long haul.

 

[JP4CY]

He loves men's track and cross country, not so sure about women's cross country or, for that matter, any of the women's non-rev sports. He seems perfectly content with having the women's non-revs as just placeholders for scholarship balance with any accompanying drive for excellence, IMHO.

I doubt volleyball makes money, ISU may be one of the handful of schools in the Country that makes money in women’s basketball (if they do it can’t be much) and I know he really cares about both of those programs.

 

[Land Shark]

I doubt volleyball makes money, ISU may be one of the handful of schools in the Country that makes money in women’s basketball (if they do it can’t be much) and I know he really cares about both of those programs.

Nobody makes money off of women's hoops. The perk at ISU, UConn, Tennessee and Louisville is the crowds are so good that you don't stand to lose as much as other schools do. In some ways, it is why Bill is actually worth the money we pay him (aside from totally turning the program around) is that we don't lose our shirt like some schools do

 

[theshadow]

I doubt volleyball makes money, ISU may be one of the handful of schools in the Country that makes money in women’s basketball (if they do it can’t be much) and I know he really cares about both of those programs.

Nobody runs in the black in WBB (not even UConn or Tennessee), or any women's sport for that matter.

 

[theshadow]

He didn't even try to retain our gymnastics head coach of the year who went on to win championships for the Sooners who did give a crap about gymnastics.

So basically, you're still bent about something that happened 12 years ago when JP was in his first year and didn't have any money to spend. Got it.

 

[BoxsterCy]

I doubt volleyball makes money, ISU may be one of the handful of schools in the Country that makes money in women’s basketball (if they do it can’t be much) and I know he really cares about both of those programs.

Not many "revenue" sports make positive flow kinda money. Football carries the freight. Revenue is just sports that have enough ticket sales and attendance to have some income.

 

[BoxsterCy]

So basically, you're still bent about something that happened 12 years ago when JP was in his first year and didn't have any money to spend. Got it.

Actually, no, you don't get it at all, you're just taking the opportunity for a smart ass reply. Won't have posted anything on the possibility if we didn't already kinda suck at all of the other womens non-rev sports. Cross country might just prove to be totally sustainable (I hope so) but we aren't really Big 12/P5 competitive in soccer, tennis, softball, swimming or even gymnastics outside of individuals. Golf is kind of a wildcard, not sure where that's trending.

 

[CycloneErik]

I doubt volleyball makes money, ISU may be one of the handful of schools in the Country that makes money in women’s basketball (if they do it can’t be much) and I know he really cares about both of those programs.

People have shown over and over that WBB doesn't make money.

 

[Three4Cy]

Actually, no, you don't get it at all, you're just taking the opportunity for a smart ass reply. Won't have posted anything on the possibility if we didn't already kinda suck at all of the other womens on-rev sports. Cross country might just prove to be totally sustainable (I hope so) but we aren't really Big 12/P5 competitive in soccer, tennis, softball, swimming or even gymnastics outside of individuals. Golf is kind of a wildcard, not sure where that's trending.

You realize when Kindler left to go to OU, Jamie worked hard to keep her. However, she wanted a brand new facility and JP told her we didn't have the money to give her a new facility. What else was he supposed to do at the time?

 

[Land Shark]

Actually, no, you don't get it at all, you're just taking the opportunity for a smart ass reply. Won't have posted anything on the possibility if we didn't already kinda suck at all of the other womens on-rev sports. Cross country might just prove to be totally sustainable (I hope so) but we aren't really Big 12/P5 competitive in soccer, tennis, softball, swimming or even gymnastics outside of individuals. Golf is kind of a wildcard, not sure where that's trending.

I share your desire to be good, if we offer it- let's be good at it I say. Soccer is intriguing to me as I thought they turned a corner two years ago getting royally screwed out of an NCAA bid (1st team out) and then fell back a year ago. This is Tony's 4th season and we really are not inexperienced any more so we need to compete for another NCAA bid as it has been a while now.

Golf is very good and an annual NCAA regional program now.

 

[theshadow]

Actually, no, you don't get it at all, you're just taking the opportunity for a smart ass reply. Won't have posted anything on the possibility if we didn't already kinda suck at all of the other womens on-rev sports. Cross country might just prove to be totally sustainable (I hope so) but we aren't really Big 12/P5 competitive in soccer, tennis, softball, swimming or even gymnastics outside of individuals. Golf is kind of a wildcard, not sure where that's trending.

You specifically mentioned that one situation, from 12 years ago, and offered it as the basis for your argument that JP doesn't care about non-revenue women's sports.

If he didn't care, tennis wouldn't have an indoor facility for practice. Soccer and softball wouldn't have gotten new practice/competition facilities. Volleyball is the the primary tenant at Hilton. Women's basketball has everything it needs. Golf has its own top-shelf practice facility. Swimming is the only sport without recent major facility upgrades, but that's mainly because it takes a ridiculous amount of money and real estate to build a new pool.

The biggest issue with the outdoor sports is the climate, which I'm fairly certain JP can't control. Softball has to play 30-35 games on the road to start to the year (so did baseball), and is lucky to get 10 home games out of a 56-game schedule. Tennis is lucky if they can play outdoors at home twice per season. Most of the Big 12 can be outside practicing and playing while Ames is buried under snow. Even the Kansas schools are far enough south that weather isn't nearly the problem that it is in Ames.